


Circle Time

by CaptainLeBubbles



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Discworld References, Elves are Dicks, Fairy Tale Elements, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-01-22 11:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12480280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainLeBubbles/pseuds/CaptainLeBubbles
Summary: It's Circle Time, the time when the barriers between the worlds are thin. Ruby has been taken away by elves, and if she can't be saved before Circle Time ends, she'll be stuck forever. And the elves won't be giving her up without a fight.That's okay. Because they're about to find out that Yang won't be giving her up without a fight, either.





	1. Prologue: Circle Time

**Author's Note:**

> This is just the prologue, actual chapters will be a bit longer.
> 
> Not tagged because it's late-game and I'm not sure how much impact it will have on the story, but there's very probably going to be some Ironqrow toward the end of the second planned act. If it turns out to be more significant when I get there, I'll add it to the tags.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet the players.

-/-

In a village in the woods on an island in the sea there lived…

...well, several people, really, it was a village, that’s what village  _ means _ , but in this case, we’re referring to a specific person, a young girl of fifteen named Ruby Rose.

Ruby lived with her sister and father, who taught at the local school, and though quite a friendly young lass, she preferred to spend her free time in the forest alone rather than in the village, surrounded by people.

On the day our story begins, she was in a meadow. Lots of young girls in stories like ours like to play in meadows, but very few of them carry blunt scythes ‘borrowed’ from their father’s barn and jump around pretending they’re fighting imagined monsters. Ruby was, currently, in the middle of a battle that involved lots of exciting sound effects, all made by Ruby, as well as a  _ very _ intense soundtrack… also made by Ruby.

Going by the sounds, it would probably be fair to assume that, in Ruby’s mind, her scythe was also a gun.

Imaginations, right?

While Ruby ran around fighting her imagined monsters with her imagined and highly improbable weapon, there came a strange hum in the air- an odd pressure and a sense of something about to  _ happen _ \- and then, quite suddenly, something  _ did _ happen.

The pressure was released, but it had left behind a circle of flattened grasses and flowers- those not already decapitated by Ruby’s battle- with Ruby in the center of what looked, from where she was standing, like a pair of rings, with lines extending away from them. Ruby tilted her head, then went over to a nearby tree and scrambled up it, clinging to a branch so she could look out at the crop circle from a height and see the whole thing.

Then she dropped down from the tree like a slightly more graceful stone and took off running back toward the house, her scythe and monsters forgotten.

-/-

Ruby’s elder sister Yang was in the garden when it happened.

Yang was not a particularly good gardener- gardening required a level of patience that she simply lacked, much preferring to involve herself in brawls and set fire to taverns on the mainland. However, the garden was important to keeping her family fed, and so she mustered up what patience she could and helped in it. At the moment, she was pulling weeds, which it has to be said, was more satisfying than studying in her room.

And because the two sisters had quite a lot of habits in common, Yang’s weedpulling was  _ also _ accompanied by a self-made soundtrack- in this case, one that seemed to involve quite a few more explosions than one would reasonably expect from a battle against weeds.

There was, for just a moment, a feeling of pressure, an unpleasant humming, and then a release- and part of the garden was flattened around her. Yang stood up straight and looked down at the shape in her hard-earned crop, and then scowled.

“Ugh!”

-/-

On the highest point of the island, on a hill overlooking both the forest and the village, there was a small castle. In fact as castles went it was really more of a mansion, but it had a couple turrets stuck on the front and a moat and drawbridge for good measure, so as far as everyone was concerned it was a castle. Nobody really minded that the moat was really just a shallow ditch; they were a simple people, with simple needs, that need being a castle.

At the top of one of the towers, surrounded by beehives, a boy was sprawled on the stones, a sword lying beside him while he stared up at the sky.

He wasn’t meant to have the sword. He’d stolen it from one of the statues in the foyer. It was heavy and unwieldy, and he had no idea how to use it.

Not entirely true. He had lots of  _ ideas _ about how to use it, but none of them were accurate or practical. And he hadn’t realized it’d be so  _ heavy _ . He could barely lift it.

Still, he’d dragged it up to the bee tower to try to practice with it, because his father was a lord and he’d got it into his head that as the son of a lord he ought to know how to fight with a sword, and unfortunately no one had bothered to tell him about things like ‘practice swords’ and ‘proper stances’ and ‘not being a scrawny out of shape wet noodle boy’.

While he was lying there, wondering what he was doing wrong, he felt the same pressure as the girls, and then, quite suddenly, heard the buzzing of many bees rising from their hives as one angry mind, and then just as suddenly the pressure broke and the buzzing died away. He sat up and looked around.

There wasn’t a bee in sight.

-/-

Glynda was the village witch. It was not a bad job, though it was one that featured quite a lot of ingratitude. She was used to that, though. And she had a job to do. Her silly little villagers weren’t going to take care of themselves, or anyway they weren’t going to take care of themselves in the specific ways that Glynda was able to.

Glynda’s house was on the opposite side of the village as Ruby’s, a little hut that backed onto a garden overflowing with various plants with magical and medicinal properties. The windows of her hut were filled with even more plants, with even more hanging in baskets from the ceiling. Any spot that got any amount of sun was taken advantage of, with the result that walking into Glynda’s house felt a bit like walking into a forest.

Glynda had a lot of plants, is what we’re getting at.

She was making tea when she felt the pressure. It felt differently to her than it did to the girls, because she was well experienced in magic and knew how to tune her own magic to it. Once the pressure ended, she set her tea aside and stood, heels clicking on her stone floor as she looked for what she already knew she’d find.

She found the shape in one of her windowboxes, in a batch of sage she’d been planning to pick soon.

Her nose wrinkled when she saw it.

“Just like a man,” she tutted, and stormed out of her house and away toward the village.

-/-

The Queen didn’t need crop circles to know when it was Circle Time. She was closely tuned to her world, and the magic that held it together, and was fully aware whenever it brushed against the barriers of another. The pressure that the people in Remnant felt was different in the Queen’s world: it was a pull, a tug, aligning everything about the world with a single point, the space where the fabric of reality was thin enough to break through.

The Queen smiled, and touched a spot on the throne she lounged on. A moment later, a woman appeared before her, golden eyes alight with the mischief she foresaw creating.

The Queen waved a single hand toward the point.

“It’s Circle Time,” she said. “You know what I would ask of you.”

A bow, and the woman vanished in a burst of flame. The Queen settled back in her throne, and smiled.

It was time for the game to begin once more.

-/-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As noted in the tags, this is heavily influenced by Discworld. However, it's not a Discworld _au_ , I've merely borrowed elements that were convenient for the story. Apart from minor aesthetic things, there's three major points that I've more-or-less lifted entirely, one of those being the concept of circle time itself, though as with all of my borrowed elements, I've changed it to suit my needs.


	2. Chapter One: Please Don't Shake The Bees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby makes a bad decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So fun thing! While I was writing this, Glynda swooped in and immediately demolished seventy-five percent of my plans by being Sensible, and I had to do some hefty rewrites to my plot. At least she had the decency to do so during the first chapter and not, you know, halfway through the second act. Thanks Glynda.

Ruby made it back to the village in record time to find several of the other villagers converged in the village lawn, with Glynda standing at the center with her arms folded. Ruby’s father was there as well, talking to Glynda very animatedly; Ruby pushed through the crowd to get there, since sooner or later attention would turn to their witch. She found herself beside her friends Ren and Nora, and elbowed Ren hard in the side.

“What’s going on?”

“Not sure,” Ren said. “The adults keep mentioning something called Circle Time, but I don’t know what that is.”

“Something to do with crop circles,” Nora said, looping an arm around Ren so that she could lean over. He picked her up and set her carefully between himself and Ruby in an almost practiced motion that Nora more-or-less ignored. “Did you see the crop circles we’ve been getting?”

Ruby nodded. Crop circles were a normal occurrence during the summer months, but the one she’d seen, and the others she’d glimpsed on her way back through the forest, were not the usual crop circles, and she’d never seen them all so close together in either time or space.

“We got one in the lily pond,” Nora said. She tittered. “It looked like a tonker.”

“Nora!” Ren tutted. “That’s not polite.”

“Well it did!”

“The ones I saw did too,” Ruby said. “Do you think it means something?”

“You can’t be serious, Glynda!” They all turned their attention to Ruby’s father, who was still arguing with Glynda. He was one of the few people in town who actually would, so naturally everyone was watching to see what unnatural thing he would be turned into.

“I am _very_ serious,” Glynda said, glaring at him. “We must take the necessary precautions now, for a short time, or they will become a permanent matter of survival later on.”

“Um, what precautions?” Ruby asked, shrinking back when Glynda turned her gaze on her. “I mean… isn’t it just crop circles? They’re normal- I mean, they don’t usually look like- like-”

“Tonkers!” Nora said loudly, and was shushed by Ren.

“-yeah, like those,” Ruby continued. “But aren’t they still just crop circles?”

Glynda gave her a piercing look, and she took a step back, relieved when she backed into her sister and felt a steadying arm on her elbow. She let her breath out slowly- Yang was there, so now it would be okay.

“They’re not _ordinary_ crop circles,” Glynda said. “They signal a thinning of the walls between reality-” She broke off, and looked around at her audience, then shook her head before trying again. “There are other worlds besides our own. Sometimes, in the course of events, the barrier between our worlds is breached, and doors are created between them.”

“What do the crop circles have to do with that?”

It may have been Ruby’s imagination, but it seemed that Glynda’s eye twitched a little. When she spoke it was through gritted teeth.

“They’re… special kind of crop circles that _only_ appear when one specific world touches ours.” Another twitch. “Fortunately, Circle Time doesn’t last _long_. So in the next few days we’ll need to take a few precautions to ensure that nothing from that world enters our own.”

“Would that be so terrible?” Ruby asked. “I mean… what could be in that other world that’s so awful?” She gasped, a little more excitement than she meant showing through. “Is it monsters?”

“Worse,” Glynda said. “Trust me, much, much worse. I won’t say their name, it calls them. Call them… call them the gentry. The gentle folk of the hills. But _don’t_ say their name.”

“Gentry?” Ruby looked around, seeing the confusion on the face of some of the children and terror on the face of some of the elders. She frowned. “You mean… elves?”

That weird pressure in the world was back. Talking erupted in the square, but it was drowned out by a weird buzzing in Ruby’s ears, and the next thing she knew Glynda’s vice-like grip was around her wrist, her glare fixed right on Ruby’s eyes.

“What did I _just say_ ,” she hissed, and, “Come with me, _now_.”

And Ruby had no choice but to follow, that odd buzzing in her ears diminishing as she followed Glynda through the village and to the witch’s hut.

She’d been in Glynda’s hut a thousand times before, since Glynda had lots of books and was perfectly happy for Ruby to help herself to their contents. She’d also learned as much as Glynda was willing to teach her about the various plants she grew and their uses, and Glynda sometimes thought aloud at her when she was trying to deal with a particularly tricky problem in her steading. And sometimes she asked Ruby to join her on her rounds, when she had a lot to carry and needed an extra set of hands.

Ruby was very familiar with Glynda’s cottage, and with Glynda, and with Glynda’s temper.

But walking up to the cottage with Glynda, she’d never, ever been _afraid_.

Now she was.

“Um, is everything okay?”

“At the moment, probably,” Glynda said. She was very clearly upset. “But it’s vitally important that we keep things that way. In,” she added, because they’d reached the cottage.

The moment she was through the door, the pressure around her was released. Ruby sagged as the tension left her body, and looked at Glynda with wide eyes.

“What’s going on?”

“You _called_ them,” Glynda said. She was moving around the room, grabbing plants and other objects here and there. “You said their name during Circle Time- I _told_ you not to say their name.”

“I don’t get it, though.” Ruby tried to follow her movements, to put together what Glynda was doing based on the plants, but she hadn’t a clue. This was real magic, by the looks of it, not the basic home doctoring that Glynda had shown her. “What’s so bad about- about the gentry? Aren’t they _nice_?”

The bowl of water clunked and sloshed threateningly when Glynda set it on the table. “ _No_ ,” she said. “They’re not nice at all. They’re mean and vicious and they’ve got no empathy and they’ll smash anything if they think it’s entertaining. They take and they take and they take and what they give is fear, and pain, and destruction. And you, foolish girl, have just _invited_ them.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“You didn’t _listen_.”

“I’m sorry.” Ruby felt herself shrinking, but she had one fascinated eye on what Glynda was doing with the herbs and the water. Watching Glynda work was always an education, though in this case Ruby wasn’t sure what kind.

After a moment of angry silence, Glynda took pity on her. Her face softened. “You like stories,” she said, and Ruby nodded. “You like stories about heroes and monsters and the dangerous things that live in the woods.”

Another nod. Ruby’s eyes flickered up from Glynda to the bowl, which now looked like the most unappetizing soup she’d ever seen. “Um, yes. Um, what are you making?”

“It’s a protective spell. It’ll shield you from the Queen’s eye, unless she gets near you. It should help.” She carried the bowl over to her stove, which lit itself on fire rather than risk Glynda’s wrath. She set it down and moved back over to where Ruby was still waiting. “You like stories,” she said again. “You must know the stories of children who stray from the paths, and people who go where they shouldn’t, and men who dance for eternity.”

“Yes. They’re just folktales, right?”

“Mmm…” Glynda considered this. “Try… folk memory. People might forget where the stories come from, but the stories remain. Warnings, cautions, reminders… people, as a whole, remembering when you didn’t go out at night for fear of what lurked in the shadows. That was our world once, and it was a dark world, and a terrible one. And, the gentry were there at the center of it. They _were_ the terrible things that lurked in the shadows.”

“What happened to them?”

“Witches. Witches and wizards. We drove them out and shut them into their own realm, and we put up barriers so they wouldn’t be able to come back. Mostly just witches,” she added primly. “The wizards only helped out in the margins.”

“But… there are just so many stories about them being nice. What about those stories?”

“Oh, they _can_ be nice if they’ve a mind to be, and if it suits them. But the price that you pay eventually will be far, far too high to be worth it.”

Ruby was silent after that, feeling properly chastised, but there was something else eating at her mind, and Glynda gestured for her to speak.

“Um, well. If this was all such a great long time ago… how do you know about it?”

For just a moment, Glynda’s usually stern expression shifted into one of regret. She folded her arms, and said, slowly, “Let’s just say that… the gentry have made many attempts to enter our world, and sometimes they nearly succeed.” She shook her head. “Last time they tried in this area, a foolish young girl not too different than you nearly doomed everyone. What _she_ did was far, far worse than merely naming them.”

“What did she do?” Ruby whispered.

“She _invited_ them here,” Glynda said, nearly spat. She was back to stern now, bordering on angry. “Invited them into the village and even to her _home_ because she wanted so _badly_ to prove that she was powerful, and it didn’t matter who she hurt in the process,” Glynda sneered. “Even her best friends didn’t get away unscathed. And if it wasn’t for _Him_ , everyone would have probably died, and there wouldn’t be a village left for them to try taking now.”

Ruby stared down at her hands, and didn’t see the pitying look Glynda passed to her. Glynda moved over to the stove and collected the bowl, while the fire put itself out in embarrassment.

“Here,” she said gently, setting the bowl and a spoon in front of Ruby. “I added some herbs for flavor so it shouldn’t be any different than eating a nice bowl of soup. Be sure to eat it all, or it won’t work. Ah,” she added, looking up at the door. “I was wondering when she’d get here.”

No sooner had she spoken than there was a banging on the door, and a look from Glynda opened it enough for Yang to fall through it. She jumped to her feet, glaring around at the world in general and Glynda in specific.

“Where’s my sister,” she demanded, only for Glynda to gesture over to the table where, it has to be said in fairness to Yang, Ruby was partially hidden by one of Glynda’s plants. Yang straightened up, relaxing visibly when she saw Ruby apparently just staring meekly at a bowl of soup. “Oh, there you are. What’s going on? Dad said you’d done something bad and Glynda was taking care of it and I wasn’t to worry about it.”

“Um, that’s about it,” Ruby said, still staring at the soup. It smelled nice, at least, for all that it bubbled an unlikely purple color- this wasn’t because of the contents, Ruby knew, just a visible signature of Glynda’s magic at work, but it was still unsettling when she was expected to put it in her _mouth_.

“Steps are being taken to keep Ruby safe,” Glynda assured her. “Once she’s eaten her soup you can escort her home. I’m going out there now to put some defenses up and give Tai extra instructions, just to be on the safe side.” She gave Ruby a stern look. “Remember, you have to eat _all_ of it.”

“Yes, Glynda,” Ruby said, finally taking her first mouthful, and then her second when she realized that the soup had a nice flavor to it, as promised. While she ate, she heard the door close behind Glynda, and Yang came over to sit across from her, watching her with concern.

“So what’s up, sis?” Yang asked, once she was about halfway through the bowl and her usual cheery disposition had started to return. “All you did was ask about-“

“Don’t say it!” Ruby said hurriedly. “Apparently it calls them- you have to say the gentry, or the good people of the hills, or something.”

“Oh. So that’s why Glynda dragged you back here? It was really scary, I’ve never seen her like that.”

“The gentry are dangerous. She was just trying to protect me. That’s what this is,” she added, waving her spoon at the soup. “It’s a protective spell.”

“I did wonder why it was purple. So it’ll protect you from the- the gentry?”

“It’s supposed to shield me from the Queen’s eyes.” She spooned up another mouthful, more slowly now. She was feeling a little waterlogged, and there was still a third of the bowl left. She groaned, and set the spoon down. “I know I have to eat all of it, but she didn’t say all at once. I’m going to go see if Glynda has any books on the gentry.”

-/-

While Ruby tried to do some research and eat her soup, Glynda strode through town to the little hut where Tai and his daughters lived. All through town she could see evidence that he’d passed on her instructions to the villagers- there were people nailing horseshoes over their doors, others securing all extra entrances to their home, and still others setting out bowls to be kept full of milk.

She sneered. She hated this kind of thing- but it was necessary, and in the long run would keep everyone safe. She just had to remind herself of that.

Besides, if the Queen was watching her island, it was her fault. She could take the blow to her pride if it meant keeping her mistakes from reaching so far into the future.

-/-

It was nearly sunset by the time Ruby and Yang reached the edge of the forest. They sped up unconsciously, remembering the things Ruby had read in Glynda’s book, about elves in nighttime forests, and then froze when they heard a rustle up above. Yang shoved Ruby behind her and raised her fists, ready to fight whatever it was, and then both girls gave exasperated sighs when Jaune fell out of the tree in front of them.

“Jaaaaune,” Ruby said. “What are you doing here?”

“I was looking for the bees,” Jaune said, standing up and brushing himself off.

“Bees?”

“Yeah, the bees. They disappeared earlier, all of them, from the hive. I’m trying to find them. But there haven’t been any, any at all. Haven’t you noticed?”

“We’ve been a bit preoccupied,” Yang said, exchanging a Look with her sister. “So did you find them?”

“No.” He sighed. “I know it sounds weird. It just feels significant.”

“It probably is,” Ruby assured him. “Maybe it has something to do with the circles.” At Jaune’s confused look, she added, “Crop circles. They’re different this year. Haven’t you seen them?”

“I saw one in the meadow but I didn’t pay it much attention. We always get a few of them this time of year.”

“Not like these,” Yang said, snickering. “These look like…” She broke off, a little embarrassed, and gestured vaguely toward Jaune’s middle. “Tonkers.”

It took Jaune a minute to catch on, and then he turned furiously red. “What?! That’s so inappropriate!”

“Right? I thought the landscape was hitting on me!” Ruby giggled nervously, then tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Glynda said it signaled the Gentry’s nearness. I guess they like being weird like that.”

“Gentry? That can’t be right. I know lots of gentry, we’re not really about… you know. Phallic imagery. Or, we are, but more subtle. More urns. And prominent fig leaves.”

“Not gentry like your family,” Yang said. “We mean like… the good gentlemen of the hills. _You_ know.”

“Good- oh, you mean _e_ -ack! Ruby!”

For Ruby had slammed both hands over Jaune’s mouth, having to drag him nearly double to do so. The two overbalanced and hit the ground, and Ruby squawked as Jaune landed on her.

“Get OFF of me! You’re crushing my spleen!”

“Sorry!” He stood, with Yang’s help, and held out a hand for Ruby. “Sorry. What was that about?”

“You can’t SAY it,” Ruby said. “You have to call them the gentry. It’ll call them- and worse, it’ll make Glynda _really_ angry.”

This, more than the threat of elves, made Jaune pale in fear.

“I’ll, uh, be really careful then.” He looked around, and realized it was getting dark. “Um, shall I walk you ladies home? It’s not safe to walk in the woods at night unescorted.”

“Sure, but who’s going to walk you home, then?”

“Um!” He coughed delicately. “Um. Well. I _am_ training to be a knight. I’m- I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Right…” Yang rolled her eyes, and gestured at the path. “Come on then, let’s go.”

“Since when are you training to be a knight?” Ruby asked, as the trio headed off the rest of the way to Ruby and Yang’s home.

-/-

After filling Tai in on everything, the two set about putting the necessary defenses into place, to keep the Queen from finding Ruby now that she’d called the elves. Tai said nothing while he nailed the iron horseshoe over the front and back doors, and then more nails into doorways and windows all through the house as an added precaution. Meanwhile, Glynda set spells of her own in place as well, each entryway glowing a dim purple for a moment before settling back down.

They were done long before the girls got home, standing in front of the house while they waited. After awhile, Tai grumbled and ran disgruntled hands through his hair.

“I guess it was too much to hope that we’d never have to deal with them again, huh?”

“I should have been more careful,” Glynda said, not looking away from the path. Tai wondered if she was extending her sight, watching the girls’ way home. He hoped she was. He wasn’t going to feel better until they’d returned, whatever she told him.

“It’s not your fault,” Tai said. “I had plenty of chances to tell her- I knew how she felt about stories- I should have realized-“

“It’s not your place to teach people about magic, Tai.”

“It’s my place to teach my daughters how to take care of themselves. And I _knew_ it was going to come to Ruby sooner or later- I should have said something. I _could_ have said something.”

“You were hoping it wouldn’t come up yet. That you could put it off. You have that right as a father. I’m your witch; I don’t.”

Tai said nothing for a long time, staring thoughtfully up at the darkening sky before, “I’ve known you long enough to know that you’re going to blame yourself whatever I say.”

“Personal responsibility is very important. If you make foolish decisions, you face the consequences. It’s just that with a witch, the consequences could hurt my entire steading. It complicates things.” She sighed. “It would be much easier to deal with if it were _any_ other child in this village, honestly. Even one as unpredictable as Nora. But of course it had to be Ruby. The girls are nearly here,” she added. “They’ve got Jaune with them.”

Tai nodded, and headed down the path to meet them as they emerged from the forest. He gave Jaune a polite nod, and then pulled both girls to him, relieved that they were safe.

At the door, Jaune gave Glynda a hesitant little nod of respect, fidgeting a little. Jaune was always a little awkward around Glynda- a fact that she encouraged, lest he get ideas above his station. It didn’t do to let lords or even future lords forget that witches sat somewhere outside of their jurisdiction. It was a foolish lord who expected witches to follow certain laws, mainly the ones that didn’t fall under their natural moral compass anyway.

Glynda leveled a gaze on him, and then glanced at Tai, hovering near the doorway with his daughters. He wouldn’t leave either his witch _or_ the son of his lord standing on his doorstep, but it was clear he wanted to get his family indoors as soon as possible. Glynda inclined her head politely at him in dismissal, and smiled at Jaune.

“I need to speak to your father,” she said. “Would you care to accompany me to the manor? I would appreciate the company.”

Relief washed over Jaune’s face, followed immediately by fear, but he nodded vigorously and extended his arm in a gentlemanly way. “Absolutely! Let’s, um, go! It’s getting dark, you know. Probably not safe.”

“No,” Glynda agreed, and took his arm, not bothering to remind him that only very stupid animals approached a witch on her own turf. She steered him off toward the forest, waving at Tai as she heard the door click behind them. “The forests are very dangerous at night, these days.”

-/-

Jaune’s nerves were getting to him while he walked with Glynda through the forest. He didn’t know how to interact with Glynda- his father had told him that witches and lords had a very carefully maintained relationship that mostly involved witches following the laws of the land under the understanding that they would never actually be asked to follow any laws of the land. It sounded to Jaune like they did what they wanted and let the lord get on with his job, and it worked, but what if he ever needed them to actually listen to him?

He was just glad Glynda was the only witch he’d have to deal with. Father said there’d been two once, and they’d gone about minding everyone’s business and getting in the way of things, but he’d always shut down when Jaune asked what happened to the other, giving Jaune the impression that he regretted only having one now.

In the meantime, he knew he was safe as could be in the forest with Glynda there, but only because Glynda was more dangerous than anything he was likely to run into. At least she seemed willing to go along with his pretense of escorting her to talk to his father.

At the manor, he sent one of his sisters to fetch Father while he led Glynda into the parlor to wait, fidgeting from one foot to the other in open anxiety until Father walked in and he could leave, trailing an explanation and shedding excess punctuation as he fled.

The last thing he heard before the door slammed behind him was Glynda’s worried voice stating, “They’re back, my lord.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glynda doesn't so much use magic as tell things to do things and they do it because they know better.


	3. Chapter Two: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Bad Idea Jeans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby makes an even worse decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't like posting chapters on episode days but honestly I can't wait any longer. Enjoy.

-/-

Long after her father and sister had gone to bed, Ruby lay awake, staring out her bedroom window at the broken moon, and wondered.

This was not a good situation she’d found herself in. The information in Glynda’s book had told her that much- the elves were not good, not good at all. They were cruel, sadistic, nasty, they hurt people and if they were able to make it into the world they could do great harm to the village- and perhaps even beyond, if they decided to venture to the mainland. How much damage could they do in- in Vale, for instance? Vale was big and crowded, it was full of people who could be hurt by the elves.

What had Ruby brought onto them by a moment’s carelessness?

Sleep was not likely to come tonight. Ruby threw her covers aside and moved over to sit under her window, eyes drawing up to the nails over it, the horseshoe just visible over the outside. She’d been seeing the nails and horseshoes all evening, now that she thought about. Dad had told her it was a defense against the gentry, since they hated iron.

She was still gazing up at the iron when she heard the singing. It was odd and uncomfortable- slightly distorted, almost cacophonous, but there was a beautiful undertone to it. Ruby squinted out the window, peering through the night for the source of the song.

Was someone out in the forest? Hadn’t they heard the warnings about the elves?

What if they got hurt? What if the elves made their way through while they were looking for Ruby and found someone else instead? No doubt they wouldn’t be spared just because they weren’t who the elves were looking for. She chewed her lip, and then carefully raised her window and crawled out. She didn’t bother closing it- she might need to get back through it quickly, once she found the singer.

Out in the yard, the singing was a little less distorted. Ruby moved toward the trees, and then paused. It wasn’t smart to go out unarmed while the gentry were about, she knew. She changed direction and headed for the barn instead, where Dad kept his tools.

She’d left the scythe lying in the meadow earlier, but they owned another scythe as well, a much nicer one with symbols on the blade. Ruby had asked Dad once- only once- why they never used that one, and he’d said it was a Death’s-blade, a battle scythe that had belonged to his brother, and wasn’t made for reaping grain. It was the only time he’d ever mentioned having a brother, and Ruby had taken the message pretty clearly that he didn’t want to talk about it. So she hadn’t asked again.

She took the scythe now. It was heavier than the one she always played with, and the balance was different; it likely wouldn’t mold to her movements as easily as the other, but it made her feel better to have a weapon in her hands all the same.

Ruby stepped out into the yard again, clutching the scythe in her hand, and strained her hearing for the singing. It sounded farther away now, like she was hearing it through water, and the beautiful quality of it was gone; it sounded like pure discord now. But it wouldn’t be fair to leave someone to the mercy of the elves just because they couldn’t sing, so she followed the sound anyway. [1]  


Ruby had lived in this forest her entire life, and played in it at night since she was a little girl. She’d never been afraid of what lurked in the trees; before her death, her mother had taught her to walk her own domain without fear, and that lesson had settled deep within her bones.

She was afraid now. She clutched the oversized scythe to her chest, wishing for her own, and her eyes darted around the shadows at every movement or even perceived movement.

She was nearing the edge of the forest when she finally found the source of the, er, singing. There was a young girl about her own age- perhaps, or perhaps she was older, Ruby couldn’t tell, her features seemed constantly shifting- dancing on the side of a hill, singing as she spun wildly through the grass, a red and gold dress flaring out around her with each movement. She was barefoot, Ruby noticed, a string of black stones glittering around one bare ankle.

Ruby stilled, watching as she spun, one hand coming up over her mouth in awe. She’d never seen anyone so beautiful in her life' the woman (girl?) was as beautiful as her singing was discordant. Ruby found her own feet twitching in response, a strong desire to join the dance rising in her.

How long she stood there watching the dancer spin, Ruby couldn’t say later, but at one point the woman spun too near her hiding space, foot swinging so close to Ruby’s face that she could make out the details on her obsidian anklet, and Ruby gasped and backed away in shock.

The singing and dancing came to an abrupt halt.

“Who’s there?” the woman called, stepping carefully through the grass toward the sound. Ruby clamped both hands over her mouth, and then the undergrowth parted and they were face to face.

Her eyes gleamed with golden fire in the darkness, and this close there was an oddly ethereal quality to her, like she wasn’t  _ really _ there, and Ruby found herself reaching out, wanting to touch, to affirm her presence-

-the girl gasped, and took one step back before turning on her heel and fleeing. Ruby’s hand dropped, and then she took off. What had she been thinking? She should have warned her about the elves immediately! Ruby clutched the scythe to her and ran after the girl, calling for her to wait, chasing the sound of crashing undergrowth ahead of her.

No matter how fast she ran, though, she couldn’t seem to keep up. The girl was always just ahead of her, a flash of red and gold spied through the trees or a crash in the undergrowth if Ruby lost sight of her.

And then Ruby saw her dash up the hill, and veered, calling for her to  _ please _ wait, still chasing, not paying attention to where she was going-

-and then she had run right into a ring of stones set on the hillside, and instead of soft summer grass under her feet there was crunching snow, and instead of the broken moon overhead the sky was empty and dark. She slowed to a walk, clutching the scythe to her chest.

Whoops.

-/-

Far, far away, much farther than the space between the stone circle and Glynda’s hut, farther even than the distance from their little island to Vale, or Mistral, or the faraway and now-dead kingdom of Mantel, Glynda snapped awake and swore.

It was a good swear. It started low in her chest and grew stronger until it came out, picking up other swears along the way, until Glynda became an image of fury, storming through her cottage tailing profanities in her wake.

She didn’t bother with her plants. Instead she went to her cupboard- it threw itself open to avoid her wrath- and grabbed a silvery disk hanging inside the door. Normally she used it for a mirror, but now she dropped it unceremoniously onto the table and spat a command, “Show me,” before folding her arms, glaring as silvery light formed a rose over the surface before shaping itself into figures.

They were not clear shapes. They were vague and distorted, a tenuous mist, but she could make out the shape of a girl, clad in a cloak and clutching-

-a scythe. Glynda’s knees gave and she sat down heavily in her chair. Her hand rose to her mouth and she watched thoughtfully while the figure moved in place in the silvery circle, clinging to the scythe like a lifeline- which it may well be, Glynda added to herself, mind racing ahead to possibilities.

“That’s enough,” Glynda said, after a moment. The silvery light faded to a small fog, hovering anxiously over the disk. Glynda waved a hand over it once more and it reformed into the shape of a bird.

“Go wake Tai,” she told it, and it vanished in a streak of light. Once it was gone, she sat back again, staring thoughtfully at the disk. If Ruby had been taken by the elves, then she was in trouble. But if she had managed the forethought to take with her the only weapon that would enter the ring of stones with her, then she might have a chance.

Had she known what she was doing, when she took the blade? No, there was no way. If Tai had not told her of the elves, he would certainly have not told her of the blade’s late owner, or its significance.

There was a pause, while Glynda pressed her hand over her eyes and the silence of her cottage was broken by a choked off sob, and then she lowered her hand and turned her attention back to what mattered.

If Ruby had taken the scythe on pure instinct, that bode well. Glynda stood and picked up the disk, then headed back across the village to see Tai once more.

She refused to lose another loved one to the elves.

-/-

It must be said that Ruby  _ did _ try going back out the way she came in. We shouldn’t go any farther into this story with our audience believing Ruby to be the sort of fool to keep walking forward on finding herself in the elven realm. While it’s true that Ruby has made some poor decisions thus far, she  _ was _ a very bright girl, and her first reaction to finding herself in fairyland was to turn around and follow her footprints back.

Unfortunately, as she walked, she found that her footprints seemed to stretch on into eternity, showing her no indication of where they began. When she turned around in the hopes of perhaps walking back and trying again, she found her footprints stopped where she stood, and when she turned yet again, the footprints she’d been following were also gone.

She was now completely without landmarks in a grey world of ice and snow under a black, empty sky.

In the distance, she heard laughter, and saw a flash of red and gold and a burst of flame. The woman she’d followed was just visible, seated side-saddle on a- for now, let’s call it a horse- and grinning nastily down at her. While Ruby stared in shock, the woman urged the creature forward, laughing.

“Go ahead and run,” she said. “I do so  _ love _ when people run. And who knows? Maybe you’ll actually get away. I mean,” she added, glancing at her hand idly, “It’s not  _ likely _ . But if you’re entertaining enough, I might let you  _ think _ you are, for awhile.”

The creature stepped closer, steam and horse smell pouring from its body- Ruby braced herself, and refused to run. She wasn’t some toy to be played with.

“Not running? How boring.” The woman sighed in enormous despair, and now the creature was near enough that Ruby could see herself reflected in the red glow of its eyes.

It was nearly on her when Ruby lashed out with the scythe. It wasn’t balanced like hers and truly she didn’t know how to use it, but she was smart enough to work out “hit it with the bit at the end”. The creature screamed as the heavy blade knocked into its forelegs, and reared onto its hind legs, pawing the air and sending the woman on its back tumbling to the ground. It didn’t stop there, though, overbalancing and falling backward, landing on the woman, who let out a cry of fury.

Ruby didn’t wait around to see any of this, or to wonder why merely hitting the creature was enough to cause so much damage- after all, she hadn’t hit it  _ that _ hard-, she merely took off running, clutching the scythe and wishing fervently that she could go fast enough to outdistance the woman before she and her horse got back to their feet. Behind her, she heard another enraged shout, but ignored it. Distance was the key now.

-/-

The elf- for she was indeed an elf, and for the sake of the audience we will now name her as Cinder- was furious. She’d seen the girl clinging to an old staff and thought nothing of it- a staff would give the girl no aid- only to have her mount knocked from under her with a Death’s-blade. It was only her fortune that the girl had not thought to use the sharp bit of the blade, or her mount would be sans legs right now.

Not that it mattered. After she’d shoved it away from her, the horse-creature had scrambled angrily to its feet and took off running, falling through the circle and out into the world. Now Cinder was on foot, and her Queen’s new plaything was getting farther away, and she was  _ furious _ .

A smile crawled across her face slowly.

_ Good _ . If the girl wanted a chase… Cinder would give her one.

-/-

Tai was woken by a burst of light just beyond his eyelids. He brought a hand up to shield his eyes and opened them blearily to see a bird made of white light fluttering just above his head. He groaned and pulled his blankets up, shooing the bird away as he did. It was too late- or perhaps too early- to deal with this.

Undaunted, the bird merely streamed in through the gaps of his blankets, giving them an odd glow and nearly blinding Tai in the process. He put his hands over his eyes, for all the good it did him, and then groaned and threw his covers aside. He sat up, giving the bird a glare.

“Okay, okay, I’m up.”

The bird ruffled its light-spun feathers in satisfaction, and faded away, no doubt to return to its mistress, while Tai sighed and shuffled out of his bedroom and down to the kitchen. He grumbled sleepily to himself while he put on a pot of tea; whatever it was Glynda wanted with him this late at night, he wasn’t going to be able to deal with it without tea.

He kept quiet while he did, though. No need to wake the girls after the day all of them had had.

-/-

By the time Glynda finally arrived, the kettle was just boiling. Glynda ignored his bleary admonishment about the hour and pushed past him into the house.

“Is Ruby here?” she asked, striding to the room like she already knew the answer. Tai followed.

“I checked on her around midnight,” he said, and then froze when Glynda opened Ruby’s door to reveal the bed empty and the window open. The color drained from his face, and he let out a vehement, heartfelt swear of his own.

-/-

“What was the point of all those defenses and warnings if she was just going to walk off and straight into Their hands?!” Tai said. He was pacing the living room, running his hands repeatedly through his hair while he tried to stop panicking.

(It wasn’t working.)

“The Queen has more tricks than we know of,” Glynda said. She was staring at the silver disk she’d brought with her, watching the little light figure that was Ruby. By the looks of things, she was running, the scythe thrown over her shoulder to be the least hindrance to her movement.

Tai stopped pacing, and spared a quick glance at the disk.

“I didn’t know you still had that,” he said. There was an accusation in his tone.

“I can’t use all of its abilities,” she said, not pulling her eyes away. “It has its uses, though.”

He started pacing again, sparing the figure another glance. “Why did she take Qr- the Death’s-blade?”

“I don’t know. Maybe her instincts told her it would help her, maybe she just felt better with a weapon in her hands. Who knows? For now let’s just be glad she has it.”

-/-

Out in the hallway, Yang leaned against the wall and listened as the two adults talked themselves in circles. She wasn’t sure why they were just talking. Why didn’t they  _ act _ ? Every moment they did nothing was another step Ruby went farther away from the safety of the stone ring.

After awhile, she pushed off of the wall and went back to her room. She spent a few moments looking around, thinking about everything she and Ruby had learned about elves in Glynda’s books, and then pulled out her rucksack and started packing.

If elves thought they were going to take her sister, then she would just have to go get her back.

-/-

“You know what we have to do,” Tai said, oblivious to Yang sneaking out of Ruby’s window and slipping off into the night. Glynda shot him a glare.

“No.”

“You have any other suggestions? We can’t go after her, Glynda.”

“I’ll think of something. Something that doesn’t mean involving  _ Him _ . He’s just as tricky as She is. We wouldn’t be able to trust Him.”

-/-

Jaune woke quite suddenly from a dream that left him feeling odd and disoriented now that he was awake. He lay still, staring into the empty darkness of his pillow, and then rolled over and stared at the ceiling for a change of scenery. What had his dream been about, anyway?

He couldn’t really remember details. But he remembered Ruby was in it. And… a talking bird? He squinched his eyes shut and rubbed at them with the heels of his hands. A talking bird, and a girl made of metal. Maybe? How odd.

There had been snow, too, and a stunning amount of emptiness. It had seemed so lonely.

Jaune lowered his hands and stared blankly at the after images bouncing around his vision, and once they had faded he stood up. It was just turning light outside, grey tendrils of dawn licking the edges of the horizon. Jaune sighed. It wasn’t long till he’d have to get up anyway, so he grabbed his clothes and dressed.

He was halfway into his pants when an image flashed in his head, so fast and sudden that he collapsed into an undignified heap with a shout. A few seconds later there was a light knock on the door, and then his eldest sister poked her head through the door.

“Everything okay in here?”

“I’m fine, Polly,” he said. “Just tripped over my pants. Again,” he added, with a sigh. Polly giggled.

“Be more careful, little brother.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

She closed the door with another giggle, and he waited till he heard her door close again to unfold himself. He dug his hands into his eyes again. It wasn’t the first time he’d been hit with random visions, but none had ever been accompanied by such an intense feeling of need.

He’d never got the hang of interpreting his visions, but this one didn’t need an interpretation.

It told him Ruby was in trouble. In big, flashing, capital letters. Shouted through a megaphone.

Later on, he didn’t remember actually thinking about what he did. He just grabbed the stolen sword he didn’t know how to use and the ill-fitting armor that he could barely move in, and took off into a dawn that was turning gold around the edges.

-/-

Ruby was getting tired. She had no idea where she was, or how far she’d run, or how long, or anything. She didn’t even know if the elf woman was behind her still, catching up or if she’d managed to lose her.

She probably hadn’t. She was probably being toyed with.

In the distance, she spotted a forest. She turned toward it if only to provide some landmarks, and was surprised when it seemed to draw closer faster than she was running. Like it was coming to meet her.

It was a strange forest. It didn’t seem to belong to the landscape at all; for one, it was filled with gold-red leaves, giving the impression of a fire on the horizon, and for another it seemed more… solid. More real.

Ruby had a bad feeling about the forest, but she kept going. It was better than nothing.

-/-

As Ruby entered the forest, a crow who had been watching her from a distance took flight, winging high overhead in the direction of Cinder and the doorway.

-/-

Yang arrived at the stones at the same time as Jaune. He had a slightly dreamy look on his face when she saw him, but he snapped out of it as soon as they reached the stones. He looked her over, gaze going from her rucksack to the long coat thrown over her arm to the determined look on her face, and met it with one of his own.

“Ruby is in trouble, isn’t she,” he said. Yang nodded.

“How did you know?”

He shrugged. “Got a feeling. What’s up?”

“She’s been taken by  _ Them _ . I’m going after her.”

“I’m coming with you, then.”

Yang nodded again, and the two turned to the stone circle. The inside of the circle looked distorted, and neither of them were eager to walk into it. Yang, in an effort to stall, turned her attention to Jaune.

“You know iron can’t pass through the circle, right? It was in Glynda’s books. You’ll have to leave your gear behind.”

“...oh.” Jaune looked a little relieved, honestly, and began struggling out of the armor. He laid it out carefully against one of the stones, and the sword as well, but the shield, which was made of wood with gold trim, he kept strapped onto his back. Once he’d straightened again, he moved back over to stand beside Yang. “So… I guess there’s no turning back once we’re through?”

“That’s right.”

A deep breath, and they stepped through.

-/-

A few miles away, Tai dropped his kettle when Glynda suddenly started swearing again.

-/-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] If you are at this point wondering why Ruby assumed the singer to be human and not elvish despite her research earlier that day highlighting the elvish love of music, this is why: all of Ruby’s research suggested that elvish voices were beautiful to hear, and the cacophonous screeching that met her ears was nowhere near the definition, even being generous. What she failed to consider is that iron distorts the elves’ songs, and Ruby, thanks to Glynda’s foresight and her uncle’s scythe, was surrounded by it. In fact, if Glynda had been a little less cautious, Ruby may have realized the song was elvish and resisted its call, ending our story prematurely. But this is a footnote for another chapter.


	4. Chapter Three: The Devil Is In the Details, But He's the Least of Your Worries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby makes some new friends, while Yang and Jaune find an old one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey does anyone know how to link to footnotes on ao3?

-/-

The elven horse-creature was angry. First it had been hit with iron, an experience it had not had a chance to have in fairyland, where iron could not enter. Then its rider had stricken it when it landed on her, and then when it tried to run away, it had found itself in a world entirely unlike its own world in every conceivable way.

It trotted through the forest, snorting in annoyance and occasionally rearing to smash at some tree that annoyed it.

-/-

The forest was nice, up close. There was detail and color, and while it was admittedly a lot of the same color, it was still a nice step up from white snow, grey snow, and white snow that reflected just enough of the surrounding night to be grey until you looked at it. And the sky, while black overhead, seemed a bit lighter here in the shade of the fiery red and gold forest.

Ruby leaned against a tree and breathed heavily. She was out of options, she knew it. She didn’t know how to get home, and she doubted the elf would let her keep away for long. But at least she could rest, if only for a few minutes.

-/-

Yang was expecting the snow. She and Ruby had read about fairyland in Glynda’s books, and snow had featured heavily. That’s why she’d brought her coat, and now she passed her rucksack to Jaune while she put it on, before they’d even gone more than one step into the circle.

“There’s a bag of glass stones in that,” she said. “Take it out for me.”

Jaune gave her a confused look, but did as he was told. He poured a few of the multicolored stones into his hand, while Yang reshouldered her rucksack and turned carefully, until she was facing the slightly warped space they’d just passed through. From any distance it would look the same as anywhere else in the world, but this close there was a haze, like a ball of heat over the road on a summer day.

Yang took a handful of the stones and tucked the pouch back into her pocket, then began laying them out gently the length of the distortion, careful that they didn’t sink into the snow. When she’d done, there was a line marking the length of the doorway, visible from at least a little way away. Jaune made an approving noise.

“Smart.”

“I overheard dad and Glynda talking,” she said. “Ruby managed to lose the door, and I wanted to make sure we wouldn’t lose it too. A rescue party is no good if we’re just as lost.”

Every once in awhile as they walked, Yang put out a few more stones- just a few, since she only had so many- so that they could find their way back. She didn’t trust footprints, or anything else that might pass for a landmark. The landscape itself was too tricky, but at least this way they could see their way back. Every few steps she paused and looked back, to ensure she could still see the last pile. She wasn’t taking  _ any _ chances.

-/-

Tai had been on the verge of panic when Ruby vanished, but now that Yang had gone after her, he’d hurtled past panic and into an eerie, tightly controlled calm that, frankly, made Glynda nervous. Tai was a cheerful guy, bouts of depression aside, and seeing him so calm was unusual enough to bode ill for  _ someone _ .

“Are you ready to involve Him yet?” he asked.

She glared. “No. We are  _ not _ asking Him for help. I’ll stop Her myself.”

“You’re not strong enough to beat her.” His voice was dull, even. A statement of fact. She bristled.

“The hell I’m not. Maybe twenty-five years ago-”

“Twenty-five years ago you had the others helping you and you still couldn’t beat Her.”

She gave him a stunned look at that, and then looked away, folded her arms. “I was a child. I’ve learned since then. I’ve gotten stronger- wiser- and I’m on to her tricks. And I refuse to grovel to Him. I needed His help to beat her before but now-”

“Grovel?” Now Tai looked stunned, and a part of Glynda was just relieved he was being reactive again. “ _ Grovel _ ? Seriously? This is about your  _ pride _ ? They’re my  _ daughters _ , Glynda! They’re all I have left! The elves have taken  _ everyone _ away from me! Do you understand that?  _ I have no one else left _ !”

When she said nothing, he gave a frustrated noise and stormed over to the door. As he reached it, he heard her murmur, “I’m still here,” and he stilled, eyes glued to the doorknob in his hand. His shoulders rose and fell slowly as he tried to keep himself controlled.

“You know… I think sometimes that you were the first one they took.”

And then he left, the soft click of the door echoing in the still grey morning.

-/-

These days, any blacksmith work the village needed doing was done by a man named Junior, a big bear of a man whose smithy sat in the center of town, right beside the tavern that he also owned. He was a good blacksmith, who between himself and his few apprentices managed to keep the village’s metal needs met with no trouble.

Not a lot of people now remembered when the smithy had been on the eastern edge of the village. The building still stood there now, but it hadn’t been open in over fifteen years. Tai hadn’t allowed any of their smiths since then to take over, hence how they’d ended up in the center of the village instead.

Tai rarely went to the old smithy anymore. He did now, though, pleased when the lock parted as easily as if it was still being cared for. He smiled at that. When it came to making things last-

-the smithy was just how it always was, if a bit dustier than before. And it still hurt to be in it, too.

It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for, and he left quickly, locking up behind him as he did. 

His pocket jingled as he walked, but he ignored it.

-/-

Ruby knew she’d have to start walking again soon, but before she could really make her feet understand that message, she heard a rustling in the trees above her. She grabbed at the scythe, which she’d leaned on the tree beside her, and held it protectively in front of her. The rustling was getting closer, quickly. Ruby backed away, wondering if it would be safe to run-

-and then a figure dropped out of the trees and landed in front of her in a crouch, bouncing up on two feet like it was nothing.

She swung the scythe on instinct, but the figure backflipped out of the way, and now that it wasn’t within range she took the opportunity to look at it.

It was a girl.

Probably.

The probably-a-girl was about her age, appearance-wise, but her body, rather than being flesh and blood, was made of silvery metal, painted with thin lines that glowed light green and converged on her eyes. She wore a dress and a bow, and red hair that had a part of Ruby wondering whether it was real or a wig, and when she’d assured herself Ruby wasn’t going to swing a scythe at her again, she beamed and waved.

“Sal-u-tations!” she said cheerily.

Ruby  _ stared _ .

And then she raised her scythe again. “Who are you?” she demanded. “And-  _ what _ \- are you?”

“That’s a very good question.” The girl tapped her chin while she thought this through. “My master[1] says that I am an  _ artificial construct _ , but he also says that I am a Very Good Girl, and sometimes he says I am sweetness incarnate.” Her smile brightened. “My name is Penny!”

“Okay… Penny…” Ruby squinted. “Are you… you know, one of  _ them _ ?”

“Them?”

“You know,  _ t h e m _ . The elves,” she whispered.

“Oh! Hmm.” Penny considered this. “I am not sure about that, actually. But I was  _ made _ by humans.”

“Well, that’s… I guess that’s a good sign…” Ruby was still trying to wrap her brain around the concept of an artificial construct, but if this girl meant she wouldn’t be alone in this strange place, she’d take what she could get. She moved closer. “I’m Ruby. What are you doing in fairyland?”

“My master said that a human had entered the forest. We went out looking for you. And now I’ve found you! It is nice to meet you, Ruby! Do you want to come back with me?”

“Sure.” Ruby looked around, wondering who this master Penny kept referring to was and if he was nearby. He sounded sinister. “So… this master of yours. Is he a nice man?”

“Oh, he is  _ very _ nice! He takes very good care of me, and I’ve learned a lot from him. I think I would be much more frightened to be trapped in fairyland if he weren’t here with me.”

She kept talking while they walked through the forest, Ruby finding herself more and more at ease as they did. Penny was trapped in this world, just as she was, and having someone else here with her was a lot more reassuring than when she was alone.

“So how did you get trapped here?” Ruby asked.

“My master wanted to learn about the crop circles, and the next thing we knew we were surrounded by snow. There was a lady who hunted for us for awhile, but then we found this forest and now were are safe… ish.”

“How long have you been here?”

“A few months, maybe? Sometimes it feels longer, though. My master says that time is distorted here, though, so we can’t trust the seeming passage of time. It could be days, or it could be centuries, and we wouldn’t know.”

“That’s so scary.”

“It is! But at least we are together. And now you are here too!” She beamed again, and then pushed aside a low branch and gestured at a campsite.

It wasn’t much of one. Really it was just a large pile of leaves under a sheet of canvas, big enough for several people to lie down comfortably, a hole filled with soot and dead embers, and a gnarled staff stuck into the dirt, standing straight up and glowing slightly. But it looked like a place where people might live, and Ruby was relieved to see it all the same. 

While she looked around, Penny moved over to the staff and touched it. Two lights rose from it and streaked off into the forest, and she turned back to Ruby.

“The others will be back soon. Would you like to sit down?”

“Yes, please.”

-/-

Yang turned to check her last pile of stones was still visible, and then gave a shout when she saw a crow standing over it, picking up and setting down each stone thoughtfully. She hurried back over, making shooing motions.

“Hey, get away from those! Shoo!”

The crow flew away, but after mere seconds it landed back at the pile and began picking at the stones again. Yang shooed at it once more.

“Stop that! Those are ours!”

The crow set the stone down and squawked at her, backwinging out of the way. “Hey, finders keepers, kid! If you don’t want people taking your things, don’t leave them lying around!” He picked up one of the stones and flew away with it, but only circled around and flew down to land on Jaune’s shield. He set the stone on Jaune's shoulder and let out an admiring whistle.

“Hey, this is nice! I’ll trade you the stones I took for this!”

“Have you been taking our stones?!” Yang lunged at the bird, while Jaune yelped and tried to dodge away. The crow just flew up again, and landed on Jaune’s head where he lay in a heap in the snow. Yang pulled herself up, and folded her arms to glare down at the bird. “Those were our landmarks. Now we’re never going to find our way back to the door!”

“Oh, is that what you were doing.” He leaned down and nibbled at his claws. “Well, that’s fine. It wasn’t going to work anyway.”

“What?”

“Your plan.” The crow hopped down to the ground and walked over to the pile of stones, picking one up and tucking it away in his feathers. It vanished. “It was a good one, don’t get me wrong. Really well thought out. Just wasn’t gonna work. If the Queen doesn’t want you going back through the door, you won’t. Even if she doesn’t move your landmarks around, you’re still stuck here.” As he spoke, more stones followed the first, vanishing into his feathers with no explanation. “Actually, she’d probably have left them in place, just so she could enjoy watching you be frustrated when you realized this for yourself.”

The last of the stones had vanished. He hop-winged back over to Jaune, who had sat up by now, and flew up to sit on his head again. He hunkered down and ruffled his feathers a little, using his beak to draw some of Jaune’s hair around him in a makeshift next. Jaune tried to swat at him, and got his finger bitten for his trouble.

And then Yang’s hands closed around him. She picked him up and held him at arm’s length, and ignored him trying to bite her hands.

“So what exactly are we supposed to do, then?”

“I don’t know!” He struggled. “Look, I’m just a simple crow, what do I know?”

“You can talk,” Jaune pointed out. He’d climbed to his feet by now. “That’s not exactly  _ simple _ . Most crows can’t do that.”

“That’s all you know.” He struggled, and managed to free himself, flying over to Jaune’s shield again. “Maybe all crows can talk, and they just don’t have anything to say to you. You don’t know!”

“I’m pretty sure we’d have heard about it by now.”

“Well…” He ruffled his feathers. “Fine! I’m not a crow. Probably. I’m a man. I think.”

“...you think?” Jaune said. The two exchanged baffled looks, and turned back to the crow. “How can you not know?”

“Well, I’m like,  _ ninety _ percent sure I’m a human that the Queen turned into a crow. But then sometimes I think, what if I’m a crow, and the Queen cursed me to only  _ think _ I’m a man who got turned into a crow? Wouldn’t that be awful?” He pecked at the shield, and tried to peel some of the gold edging off, then flew over to sit on Yang’s shoulder when that failed. “I mean, here I am, thinking ‘one day I’ll break the curse and be human again’, and then it turns out I was never human to begin with. That’d be a lot worse than just being a human turned to a crow, right? What do you think?”

“I think we need to keep moving, if we’re going to find my sister,” Yang said, shooing the crow away and turning to keep going. She didn’t know which direction they’d come from, but she didn’t mean to let that stop her.

The crow flew down to the ground and picked at his claw again. “You mean the girl with the scythe, right?”

Yang’s hands closed around him again, and when she lifted him up there was murder in her eyes. “What girl? Where? Tell me!”

“Hey, not so tight!” He struggled, and when she released him flew back to the shield. “A girl in a hood, right? With a scythe? She went to the forever-fall forest.” At the look she gave him, he added, “I can take you there. I can’t go in but I can take you to the edge.”

“I thought you said the Queen changes the landscape around here?” Jaune said.

The crow gave a birdly shrug and flew a few feet away, landing in the snow and hopping a couple times. “Sure, but space doesn’t work for birds like it does for humans. And crows always know where they are, I can find my way around easy-peasy. Come on, I’ll take you to the forest so you can get your sister.”

He took a few steps in the snow, then flew up and landed on Yang’s shoulder.

“No tricks,” he said. “Promise.”

“We don’t know if we can trust him,” Jaune said.

Yang nodded. “No. But right now he’s all we’ve got. All right, Crow. Which way?”

-/-

The “others” Penny referred to turned out to be a man in an army uniform that she introduced as General Ironwood, and a tall girl about their age in very old-fashioned clothes and whose hair was approximately the same red as the forest leaves. Penny introduced her as Pyrrha; her speech, while understandable, had a slight accent to it that felt as old-fashioned as her clothes.

“I’ve been in this forest for as long as I can remember,” she said. “I don’t even know how I got here. But I think by your own timeline, I came from a very long time ago.” She looked sad. “If I were ever to leave, everything I knew would be ancient history. Perhaps it’s best left forgotten all the same.”

“That’s so sad,” Ruby said. She felt a little like crying, both for Pyrrha’s loss and because she was now worried about losing her own memories of home if she stayed here too long. “But I’m going to try to get home! I’ve got until the end of Circle Time before the doorway closes and I’m stuck here. So… four days.”

Above her, General Ironwood gave her a grim look. “How do you mean to judge four days? There are no indications of time in this world.”

“Ah- well-” She scrunched up her face in determination. “I’ll think of something! I can’t just leave my family behind.” She glared up at him and squared her stance. His face softened.

“We’ll help if we can,” he assured her. “But you’ll have to go through the Queen, if you truly mean to leave. Otherwise you’ll never make it through the doorway.”

“Fine.” Ruby grabbed the scythe. “If that’s what I’ve got to do, then so be it. Where is she?”

-/-

When Tai returned to his house, Glynda was pacing, muttering to herself as she did. The silver disk was lying on the floor, and various small items were floating in the room, shifting slightly in tune with Glynda’s movements. Tai sighed. He hated when she got worked up like this.

“Glynda?”

She didn’t look at him, but he saw the slight falter in her steps that told him she’d heard him. He took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know your reservations about asking the King for help. I know it’s not just about your pride. And I know that- that you lost them all, too. It wasn’t fair to say otherwise.” His eyes flickered to the disk on the floor. “What’s going on with the girls?”

“I don’t know.” She stopped pacing, and the items floating around her dropped to the floor. Tai winced. Some of those objects were fragile. “They’ve passed beyond the power of my sight. Whatever’s going on, we can’t even watch over them anymore.”

“Our hands are tied,” he said. He reached down and opened the flap on his shorts pocket, but didn’t reach in just yet. “We can’t enter Her realm, or find our way back if we did. We can’t watch over the girls’ progress. We can’t help them from here.” He took a deep breath. “Glynda, you  _ know _ what we have to do.”

She nodded, and behind her, she heard a soft thump as Tai set one of the objects in his pocket onto the table carefully. She turned.

It was a horseshoe. It looked like an ordinary horseshoe.

Her eyes closed. “All right,” she said. “We’ll go to Him.”

 

-/-

“The trouble is, if we leave the shelter of the forest, we’ll be back at Her mercy,” Ironwood explained. “This forest shields us from her sight and power, but if we leave it, it’s likely that she’ll change the landscape and make us lose it. So we wouldn’t even be able to return.”

“What kind of forest is this, anyway?” Ruby asked, looking around. It seemed so different than the rest of fairyland.

“We’re not sure,” Pyrrha said. “But the Queen’s magic doesn’t seem to work here, which is why we stay here.”

“What about the woman who was chasing me? Will it hide me from her?”

“Probably not.” Ironwood moved over to the staff and touched it. A soft white light spread around them, expanding outward. It folded around Ruby, encasing her, and then faded. “I don’t have much magic left in this world, but what little I have I use to keep the elves from finding us. You’ll be safe from their Sight now, at least.”

“I was supposed to be already,” Ruby said quietly. Ironwood’s spell had reminded her of Glynda’s, and she felt bad. Her family must be worried about her.

“Ruby?” Penny looked worried. Ruby gave her a smile.

“Sorry. I just really want to go home.”

Ironwood reached over and plucked his staff from the ground. “Let’s go, then. We’ve only got four days, and no way to gauge how much time has passed already.”

-/-

The crow had landed on Jaune’s shield, only flying ahead occasionally to ensure that they were going in the right direction. Sometimes he landed on Yang’s shoulder instead, but when he’d tried to burrow into her hair to get out of the cold, she’d yelled at him, so now he avoided her.

“So this forest,” Jaune said, a little more conversational than Yang. “You said it’s called forever-fall?”

“Yeah.” He ruffled his feathers and stuck his head into Jaune’s shirt, then tried to follow with his body. His voice, when he spoke again, was muffled. “It’s left over from the old days. This used to be a living world, once, but then it died. The King and Queen used their magic to keep it around, but they could only do so much and they mostly just stalled it by creating a permanent winter. But there are still a few remnants around, like the forest, where other seasons still live. The Queen doesn’t go to them. She doesn’t like them.”

“Why? I would think it’d be nice to go somewhere that wasn’t winter.”

The crow gave up trying to burrow into Jaune’s shirt and instead hunkered down between his shield and his neck. “It distorts her magic. She can’t control it, and she doesn’t like things she can’t control.”

“How do you know all of this?”

“Oh, I pick it up. It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do, and sometimes it amuses the Queen to have me hanging around her palace.” He flew over and landed on Yang’s rucksack, fiddling with the clasp in the hopes of burrowing into it instead. “I keep hoping she’ll decide to undo her spell, but no luck so far.”

“Too bad,” Jaune said. “But what if she did? You’d just be a human stuck in this realm, like we are. And it’d be easier to get lost. At least like this you can find your way around.”

His head popped up out of the space he’d made under the flap of Yang’s rucksack. He winged over to land on Jaune’s shield again. “Say, that’s a good point. Still. I’d like to have opposable thumbs again.”

“We have a witch back home,” Yang said suddenly. “A powerful one. Maybe if you leave with us, she’ll be able to turn you back.”

“Yeah?” He whistled happily. “Thanks! Are you sure you don’t mind smuggling me out?”

“You’re helping us, aren’t you?”

“I sure am! Oh, veer over a bit, there’s a hunting party that way. Probably looking for your sister. We’ll have to detour around them if we want to miss them.”

“A hunting party?” Jaune held his hands over his eyes out of habit and squinted in the distance. He saw nothing. “Where?”

“Oh, they’re pretty far away at the moment. Don’t worry, we’re still going in the right direction. It’s just a little farther than it was.”

Yang and Jaune exchanged a look, and turned to follow. Jaune added, hesitantly, “Well… if there’s a hunting party looking for her, doesn’t that mean she’s safe?”

“Tch.” The crow landed on Yang’s shoulder. “Sure. For now.”

-/-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] This is one of those tricky language things that is difficult to communicate smoothly because everyone involved would already understand, so we should make clear at this point that the context Penny uses when she refers to a "master" is a student/teacher, master-and-apprentice context. Because that's the default context for their world and culture, it's the assumption that anyone would make upon hearing the referral, and they would spare no regard for the reader's need for them to clarify that it means nothing skeevy or creepy or unpleasant.
> 
> ((I have actually spent the better part of three days trying to figure out how to make that clear, and this was the best I could come up with. A better author might have done better, but I'm the one writing this fic.))


	5. Chapter Four: Well-Met By a Lack of Moonlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The groups finally meet up, after Yang and Jaune make some _very_ bad choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why did I write fight scenes I hate writing fight scenes.

The forest was bigger than Ruby realized. She trailed along behind General Ironwood, with Penny beside her and Pyrrha bringing up their rear. She had a spear in one hand, tipped with flint in the absence of iron, and a round wooden shield on one arm. She looked a bit like a gladiator like that, and Ruby said as much when the quiet got to her and she needed to make some conversation.

“That’s what General Ironwood said, too,” Pyrrha said. “He says judging by my clothing and fighting style, I was probably a professional combatant before coming here.” She glanced over at him, and added, “From what I understand gladiators didn’t have the best life. Sometimes I wonder if I wasn’t better off coming here, instead.”

“Pyrrha likes to keep up a positive outlook,” Ironwood explained. “I suppose if your options are either enslavement or being free but in constant danger, being prisoners of the Queen wouldn’t seem so bad.”

“At least now when I fight it has meaning,” Pyrrha said. Ruby got the feeling they’d had this conversation before, because she smiled and added, “Not that I have to fight much. More of my fights are training with Penny and General Ironwood than fighting elves. They don’t come near the forest much.”

“Do you know how to fight?” Ironwood asked Ruby. He turned to glance at the scythe currently thrown over her shoulder. “I never would have expected to see a little girl with a Death’s-blade. Do you know how to use it?”

“Not really.” She flipped it around to look at it and then tossed it over her other shoulder. “I grabbed it because I didn’t want to go into the woods without a weapon if there were elves around, and this was the only thing we had.”

“Hm.” Ironwood looked over at it again. “One of your parents, then?”

“Um, Dad said it belonged to his brother, but I’ve never met him. I didn’t even know Dad  _ had _ a brother.”

Ironwood stopped, then, and gestured for the girls to have a rest. Ruby flopped willingly to the ground- she was energetic normally, but she just didn’t have the stamina for the amount of walking they were doing. Pyrrha took a look around, then sat down beside her, hands folded neatly in her lap, while Penny remained standing, eyes glowing slightly as she stood guard.

“May I see it?” Ironwood asked, holding out a hand for the scythe. When Ruby hesitated, he added, gently, “I just want to know if I’m right about it. I promise not to harm it.”

This time she handed it over, and it looked far more at home in his hand than hers: for one, it wasn’t bigger than him, and for another, he was clearly a hardened fighter, used to holding weapons. He passed his staff over to Penny so he could use both hands to examine it.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a Death’s-blade,” he said. “It was in my youth, back when Mantel and Vale were at war. The army was led by a woman who used it like a master.”

There was a silence while he looked over the scythe. He even brushed the thumb of his right hand over the edge, and then looked thoughtfully at the slit it made in the glove he wore. Then he shifted his hold and spun, swinging the scythe around in an arc that sliced a tree in half like butter. He straightened up, watching it fall with a satisfied look, and handed it back to Ruby carefully. She took it back, still staring at the tree as it toppled sideways.

“It’s well-made,” he said. “Your uncle seems to have known what he was doing.”

“I guess so.” She was staring at the scythe; for a moment, when he swung it, it had seemed to slice through the very air itself. She looked up. “Did you say you were from Mantel?”

“Yes. Penny too,” he added, taking his staff back.

“Well. I don’t know how to tell you this, but Mantel doesn’t exist anymore. It fell about a century ago- there was a big war, and they disbanded. It’s a bunch of little city-states now.”

Ironwood and Penny looked at each other. “That means my father is certainly dead,” she said sadly. “Even if we went back to our world, I would never get to see him again.”

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. He didn’t say anything else. There didn’t seem to be anything else  _ to _ say.

After a moment, though, Penny seemed to brighten. “At least I still have you!” She said. “That is better than being all alone!”

“Yeah, it is,” Ruby said softly, staring down at her hands. She wanted to comfort Penny, but she wasn’t quite sure how.

“We should move on,” Pyrrha said suddenly. She stood back up. “We only have so much time, and we shouldn’t waste it.”

-/-

They had been walking for ages, though they had no way to gauge the passage of time. The crow had finally managed to burrow into Yang’s rucksack, and they could hear soft whistles within that suggested he was asleep.

“Are we sure trusting him is a good idea?” Jaune asked. Yang shrugged.

“You have any better ideas? It’s better than wandering around lost.”

“Well, in theory, but what if he’s leading us away from Ruby? Or straight to the Queen? At least if we’re wandering around lost there’s a chance of us finding her.”

“I’m not a traitor,” came the muffled voice of the crow from within Yang’s bag. “And I  _ can _ hear you.”

“We thought you were asleep,” Jaune said, a touch accusingly. The crow’s head popped out of the bag.

“Only dozing. I’m tired, but I was paying attention in case anything happened.”

He sounded hurt. Yang sighed. “Look, you can’t be surprised. We don’t know you. You  _ could _ be telling the truth, or you could be lying.”

“Eh, whatever.” He pulled his head back in. “You’re going to run into a hunting party if you keep straight,” he added.

Yang and Jaune exchanged a look, a silent conversation of expressions, and kept going straight. They thought they heard a “Tch. Figures.” from within the bag, but ignored it. They would know soon enough whether he was telling the truth.

-/-

It was daytime. The sun was still low over the horizon, but the world was alight and the village was going about its business as usual, albeit in groups instead of alone, and no one lingered the way they normally would. No one wanted to be far away from the protection of iron if the gentry came through the door and started causing trouble in the world.

Among the adults, anyway. Most of them were old enough to remember the last time the gentry appeared, and the losses their village had suffered from them. They didn’t want to go through any of that again, not anytime soon.

Some of the younger people, though. Well. They didn’t know. And they can’t be blamed for not knowing, though they can be blamed for not listening.

But it was a nice day, and they’d finished their chores, and Tai had closed the school for the day, and there was no privacy at home.

Nora had skipped off into the forest with a laugh, and when Ren had shouted for her to come back, she had just called back that he’d have to catch her first. So he’d run after her, soft smiles in contrast to her laughter while he followed her through the forest.

He didn’t bother to run. He’d catch her when she was ready for him to, and it would be more fun if he wasn’t exhausted when he did. Besides, she always made sure that he knew where she was.

And then he heard her scream.

And he took off running, pretense forgotten in favor of getting to her side as quickly as possible.

“Nora!” 

He crashed into the clearing and froze. There was a… creature. It was shaped like a horse, but it was like no horse he’d ever seen: it was black, but not an organic black, a shadowy, inky black. It had a matted, tangled mane, glowing red eyes, swirling angrily down at him, and white skeletal plates adorning its frame. A pair of wicked curving horns sprang from its forehead, and its hooves were split into two toes, two unsettlingly sharp toes. And its mouth was far too wide and filled with sharp fangs. His eyes darted around, and he found Nora in a nearby tree.

The… horse… lowered its head and pawed the ground, then ran toward him. Ren ran- not anywhere in particular, just ran- and when he found himself under Nora’s tree he grabbed the branch and pulled himself up. Once he was as close as he could safely get, he reached out one hand. She took it and gave it a reassuring squeeze, and they turned their attention to the creature.

“What  _ is _ that thing?” Nora demanded.

“Some kind of horse?” Ren guessed. He looked around, wondering what they were going to do about this, and his eyes landed on a standing stone, one of several that were scattered around the forest seemingly at random. A crop circle had been flattened around it, one of the special ones that upset Glynda so much. From up here, he could see why.

“I think it probably came from that other world Glynda mentioned,” Nora said, drawing the same conclusions as Ren. “She said they don’t like iron. Do you have any on you?”

“I’ve got my knives,” he said. “Too bad you left your hammer at home.”

“Well, I didn’t think I’d need a weapon for- gathering nuts.”

“Right.” He looked around, considering their options, and drew his knives. “You’re faster in the trees than I am- you go back to the village and get Glynda. I’ll keep this thing here.”

“Sure you’ll be okay?”

“I’ll stick to the trees as much as possible.” He spared a glance to the monster, who had just aimed an impressive kick at a low branch, shaking the tree and smashing the branch to the ground. They both winced. “...hurry back.”

“You got it!” She snapped off a salute, and took off through the branches, while Ren dropped off of his own branch and kicked a stone at the creature. It spun on him, red eyes rolling in anger before it lowered its head again and charged.

-/-

In the village, Ren’s mother was just bringing in a load of laundry when Nora burst out of the forest and into the shed where her husband and the children stored their weapons outside of training. She came out carrying her hammer thrown over her shoulder, not stopping as she called, “Ren’s fighting a monster in the forest and I’ve got to go get Glynda I’ll explain later!!!” on her way through the yard.

-/-

Nora found Glynda and Tai on the way to her cottage, and she hurried to catch up to them.

“Monster in the forest! Fighting Ren! Eastern standing stone!” she said, before flopping down onto the grass to breathe heavily.

Glynda and Tai took off without a word, heading where she’d told them. After a few moments to catch her breath, she bounced up to follow them. She was training to be a knight, after all. And a knight didn’t run out on helping someone in danger.

-/-

Yang saw the hunting party first, and threw her arm out to stop Jaune in his tracks.

“Told you,” came the muffled admonishment from inside her rucksack. She ignored him, and pulled Jaune down. Had the party seen them yet? Were they safe?

“Hey, Girlie, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna take off now. I don’t wanna run into that lot, they’re a nasty bunch.” The crow wriggled out of Yang’s rucksack and started walking in the opposite direction, not even leaving footprints in the snow. They watched him go, and turned back toward the hunting party, currently moving across the snow in their direction.

“We deserved that,” Yang said. Jaune hung his head.

“It was my fault. I’m the one that said all those things.”

“You were right, though. He  _ could _ have been laying a trap.” She sighed, and pulled her rucksack around to dig around in it, while Jaune tried to guess what the hunting party were up to- it was obvious they were moving to the pair, but not very quickly. “Anyway, I meant we deserved it for not listening to his warnings.”

She seemed to have found what she was looking for, because she made a triumphant noise and set her rucksack aside. There were a pair of brass knuckles in her hands; Jaune raised a surprised eyebrow.

“How did you bring those…?”

“They’re made of bronze,” she explained, slipping her fingers through them. “I had a feeling I was going to need something to punch with.”

“Yang, you’re  _ amazing _ ,” Jaune said. 

“I know.” She flipped her hair behind her and stood. “Now come on, I’m not going to meet them hiding. Wait, where’d they go?”

He took his shield off his back and strapped it onto his arm, standing as well and looking around.

The elves had gone. The pair backed up against each other, watching for their approach- and now Jaune understood what they’d been doing. They’d spread out to surround the two humans, and now were approaching from all directions. Jaune counted three, two women and a man.

The leader was a woman in a red and gold dress, and once the elves were close enough she raised a bow and fired; Jaune managed to deflect it with his shield, while Yang used that opening to launch herself at the woman, fist ready-

-only to be knocked aside. She caught her landing in a roll and sprang to her feet, leaping aside just in time to dodge another shot. Off to her side, one of the other elves leapt for Jaune, and he caught the blow with his shield once more.

The elf screamed in pain at the contact, freezing the fighters. Yang caught the angry look in the lead woman’s eyes as she stared at first the screaming elf and then the shield, and then she threw everything she had into another punch, this time managing to catch her off guard.

“Jaune!”

“I’m on it!” He spun, lashing out with his shield to catch another of the elves as she approached from behind, and then kicked her for good measure.

“What’s with your shield, Jaune?” Yang called back to him.

“I don’t know! Maybe I’m just better at this than I thought!”

“Questions for later!” Yang replied, ducking and swinging at the elf again. She was being backed up- she was in way over her head here- and then she found herself back to back with Jaune. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw him fighting the other two, mostly by blocking their blows and lashing out when they tried to avoid his shield.

-and then a black blur appeared out of nowhere, hitting the lead woman’s face with lots of flapping and clawing and cawing. For one stunned moment, the fight stopped, and the crow called out, “Are you two stupid? Run!” before he was grabbed and thrown aside by the woman.

But the distraction had been enough. Yang and Jaune had broken free and taken off, Yang grabbing the crow as they passed.

“Which way?” she asked the dazed crow. He ruffled his feathers, trying to get his bearings, and gestured one wing vaguely to their left. Yang veered, and for a while there was only the sounds of them running, their feet crunching in the snow and their breath coming heavy.

“We won’t be able to keep this up for long,” Jaune said. He was already flagging, trailing a few feet behind Yang.

“You won’t need to,” the crow said. “We’re nearly- there!” He wriggled out of Yang’s hands and flew into the air. “The forest is only just ahead! You’ll be safe there!”

He was circling overhead, and now the kids could see the forest in question, a golden-red flame on the landscape.

“You two go on,” the crow called. “I can’t enter the forest anyway; I’ll try to keep them off your tail. Go!”

They were too out of breath to bother with words. They just kept running.

-/-

Ruby’s group had reached the edge of the forest. They’d stopped for another rest, all of them reluctant to leave its relative safety. Suddenly Penny’s eyes flashed green.

“Someone is coming,” she said. Pyrrha reached for her spear, while Ironwood held out a hand to Penny.

“Show me what you see,” he said softly, and she took his hand; for a moment, his right eye lit up silvery-blue, and then it faded.

“Humans,” he said. “Two of them, teenagers by the look of it. They’re being chased by elves.”

“What do they look like?” Ruby said urgently.

“They are both tall, with blond hair,” Penny replied. “There is a girl and a boy. The girl has a coat and is wearing knuckle-dusters, and the boy is carrying a shield. Do you know them?”

“I think that’s my sister!” Ruby said, wringing her hands in both delight and anxiety. “The boy sounds like Jaune. What are they doing here?!”

“Being chased, by the sounds of it,” Ironwood said. “What’s our plan?”

Pyrrha strapped her shield onto her arm. “We help them,” she said, in a tone that brooked no argument.

Ironwood looked to Penny and Ruby, who both nodded; he nodded back. “All right then. Ruby, you stay with Penny, then, you’re not a trained fighter like these two.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Penny, you guard the kids when we get to them. Pyrrha, you’re on offense with me.”

“Understood!” They both snapped off a salute, and the group took off, Ironwood leading. Their reluctance was gone; they had a job ahead of them, now.

-/-

It was not surprising when Jaune stumbled and went sprawling in the snow; honestly, Yang was more surprised he’d made it that far. She turned and ran back to him, reaching down to haul him to his feet, and unfortunately caught a glimpse of the elves, catching up at a seeming stroll that ate up distance in a way that the kids had not managed to.

“Hey Yang?” Jaune said suddenly. She looked down; he was pointing at the forest. “I found Ruby.”

For there Ruby was: carrying the scythe from their barn, running alongside a tall man and two girls their own age. Their eyes widened, and then they remembered the elves on their tail and took off again, aiming to meet Ruby’s group in the middle.

They came to a halt with the newcomers between Yang and Jaune and the elves, one of the girls planting herself in front of them and the other joining the man ahead of them all. Jaune stared wide-eyed at the silver girl in front of them, but Yang only had eyes for her little sister.

“Ruby! What- what in the  _ world _ ?”

“Introductions later?” Ruby said, flipping the scythe around. “We’ve got bigger problems.”

The elves had reached them, stopping short at the sight of the newcomers. A smile spread across the leader’s face.

“Well, well,” she said, in a voice like melted honey. “Look who we found. The Queen will be happy to know that these… runaways… have been chased out of their forest and straight into our hands.”

“You say that like you think we’re going with you without a fight,” Ironwood said. There was  ‘ _ thunk _ !’ as the scythe blade hit the ground beside him, and in his periphery he saw Ruby, staring them down and ready to attack. He shifted his staff to his right hand. “We’ll be going now. Tell your Queen if she wishes to host us in her home, she can send us a real invitation.”

Both of the other elves took a step back, eyes glued to the scythe, while the woman glared.

“You don’t even know how to use it,” she said. “What threat do you think you are to me?”

“I know it hurts you. And that you won’t come near it,” Ruby said. “Leave. Now.”

“She’s got a point,” the male elf said, not taking his eyes off the scythe. “This sounds like a problem for someone higher up than us.”

The woman looked surprised. “Both of you?”

“Now sounds like the time for a strategic retreat,” the other female elf said. “Let’s go. They aren’t going anywhere- the Queen will see to that.”

“Very well.” The woman took a step back, and lowered her hands. “We’ll retreat, and return with greater forces.”

And with that, the three vanished in a burst of flame. Slowly, hesitantly, the group relaxed their fighting stances, and suddenly Ruby found herself on the receiving end of two hugs that were almost too tight for comfort if she wasn’t returning them just as hard.

“I’m so glad you’re safe!” Yang said, squeezing a little harder, and then broke the hug apart to hold Ruby at arm’s length. “What were you thinking?! After everything we learned about the elves, you still just waltzed right into fairyland?!”

“I’m sorry.” Ruby hung her head. Now that she was thinking about it- she’d been pretty dumb to fall for the elf’s call. “I- I thought I heard someone in the forest and I was going to- to warn them about the elves…”

Yang rolled her eyes good-naturedly, and chucked at Ruby’s shoulder. “Ruby… only  _ you _ would get caught by elves because you were so scared that someone else might get caught by elves.” She looked around. “So who are your friends?”

“Oh!” Ruby brightened up. “This is General Ironwood, and this is Pyrrha, and this is Penny!” She gestured at each in turn. “They’re prisoners here, too. They’re helping me!”

Yang smiled, her face soft and gentle while she looked at her sister. “I’m glad you weren’t alone.”

-/-

The forest was gone. When they turned around, they were in the middle of a frozen landscape, no forest in sight. Pyrrha sighed.

“Well… we sort of knew that would happen,” she said. “So what do we do now?”

“We could always wait for the Queen to find us,” Jaune said. “With no landmarks and no way of finding the door, what else is there?”

Beside Ruby, Penny’s eyes started glowing. Ruby turned to her, touched her arm curiously. “Penny?”

“There is someone coming… I think.”

“Elves?”

“No… it is a-” There was the sound of flapping, and the crow landed on Jaune’s shield. “-bird,” Penny finished. The crow just reached up to scratch around its eye.

“See you got rid of that lot,” he said. “And found some new friends, too.” He looked around at them all, and then gave a happy little chirp and flew over to sit on Ironwood’s shoulder. “Hey there, handsome,” he said. “I can’t say for sure, but I feel like when I was human you and me would have got along  _ reallll _ well.”

Ironwood looked stunned. “Um. What?”

“Come here often?” The crow preened. “What’s a big handsome guy like you doing in a fairyworld like this? Nice coat. I bet those buttons would look great tucked away in my nest.”

The echo answered. The crow just hunkered down, looking as happy as… well, a crow. Ironwood turned his baffled look to the kids, hoping for some kind of explanation.

“He’s cursed,” Yang said, tone coated liberally in poorly-disguised amusement. “He’s pretty sure he’s a man who got turned into a crow by the Queen.”

“Only pretty sure?”

“Yeah. Like, ninety percent.” He wriggled, puffed up his feathers. “Pretty good odds, right big guy?”

“I-” Ironwood broke off, and shook his head. He touched one gloved hand to his forehead and took a deep breath. “I can’t believe I’m getting hit on by a bird.”

“Speciesist.”

“You’re a bird.”

“Only for now!”

“And I’m human.”

“Only  _ kinda _ .”

At which point Ironwood got annoyed and reached for the crow on his shoulder, only to have him caw and fly away, circling the group before landing on the scythe leaned against Ruby’s shoulder. He gave another happy little caw.

“Say, would you look at this! No wonder those elves beat it! I wouldn’t want to face anyone wielding a Death’s-blade like this if  _ I _ was an elf.” He leaned his head down to inspect the markings on the blade, scooching his way along so he could look closely. “This thing is something else! Whoever made it is an expert.” He looked over at Ruby. “Did  _ you _ make it? You’re awfully young to be a craftsmaster.”

“Um, no. My late uncle made it.”

“Well, your late uncle was a genius.”

“I guess.” Ruby shrugged. “I never met him, he died before I was born.”

“Shame,” the crow said. He was inching his way down the handle, now. “I think I knew a lot about Death-iron when I was a human. I’d have liked to talk to him.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have any memories from your life as a human?” Jaune asked.

“I don’t, but I still have my old knowledge. Sort of. It’s all kind of fuzzy, but I  _ definitely _ know a lot about Death-iron.”

“Maybe you can fill us in,” Yang said, folding her arms. “Exactly  _ what _ is Death-iron? And what’s so special about my uncle’s scythe? I overheard Dad and Glynda say that it was the only weapon Ruby could bring with her through the door. What’s the big deal? What’s a  _ Death’s-blade _ ?”

“Isn’t it a scythe?” Ruby asked. “I mean, since Death uses a scythe?”

“Nah, not necessarily.” The crow flew up to land on Ruby’s shoulder, and wriggled his way in under her hood. “A lot of Death’s-blades end up being scythes, but it’s not required.”

“A Death’s-blade is a blade made with Death-iron,” Ironwood explained. “It’s the iron that goes anywhere- taken from the shoes of Death’s horse, and the discarded blades of her scythe. There’s not a lot of it in the world because her blacksmith just melts down the iron and reuses it, but some of it gets saved and makes it out among humans.”

“It’s not a widely known concept,” the crow added. “But a lot of high-up magic types find out about it eventually. And then spend their lives salivating over getting their hands on something that powerful.”

“It would be useful if we could,” Ironwood said. “We wanted some when we made Penny, but the best we could learn was that the Blacksmith lived in Vale, and since we were at war with them at the time…” He shrugged. “We ended up using silver, instead.”

“I like being silver,” Penny said cheerily. “And anyway, iron doesn't conduct magic.”

“Death-iron would have made it much easier to bind your life-force to your body, though,” Ironwood said. “But we made do, and I suppose at this point it doesn’t matter.” He rested a hand on Penny’s shoulder and smiled, then turned his attention to the group. “Death-iron also harms elves, moreso than regular iron, and distorts their magic, and they can’t see it if they aren’t using the right sight. That scythe may be our only protection at the moment.”

“And the shield,” the crow said, from inside Ruby’s hood. “It’s got Death-iron embedded in it, too.”

“Really?” Jaune took the shield off of his back and looked at it, surprised. “But- I thought it was gold!”

“Gold leaf,” the crow explained. “Gold leaf over Death-iron. Where’d you get it?”

“From one of the suits of armor decorating the foyer back home. Is it seriously Death-iron?”

“Oh yeah, trust me on this one. I’ve got crow sight, means I can sense these things.”

“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that,” Yang said, while the crow flew over to sit on Ironwood’s shoulder again, fluffing up and rubbing his cheek against Ironwood’s neck. 

"Did you know crows mate for life, big guy? Something to consider, you know, once I'm human again."  


Yang folded her arms. “I think you’re just a weird crow.”

“How would you know?”

“How would  _ you _ ?”

“Well-“ She made a valid point, so he ‘humphed’ and turned around, tucking his head under his wing to sulk. She rolled her eyes.

“I’m telling you- weird damn crow.”

-/-

The Queen did not turn to look at the three elves kneeling before her, instead opting to stare out the window of her palace at the empty, lifeless landscape of snow and ice that her world had become.

“Tell me, Cinder dear,” she said, finally sparing them a glance laced with contempt. “What orders did I give you?”

“To bring you the girl with the silver eyes,” Cinder said, not raising her eyes from the floor.

“And what did you do, when you had the girl before you?”

“...I ran, your majesty.”

“You  _ ran _ .”

“She has the sentinel’s Death’s-blade,” Cinder protested, risking a glance up and immediately looking back down. “And she was with a larger group, one that included the gladiator and the general. Either of them might have wielded the Death’s-blade against us.”

“Might have,” the Queen said, with obvious disdain. “But you don’t know, do you? Because you never took the chance.”

“Apologies, my lady,” Cinder said. “Next time-“

“Next time?” Now, at least, the Queen turned. “There will be no  _ next time _ , Cinder. You were given a chance, and you failed to follow my orders. I will be sending Tyrian instead.”

“ _ Tyrian _ ? That-“ Cinder looked up, and immediately shrank back as she met the eyes of the Queen. “...yes, my lady. As you say.”

“Good.” The Queen glided over to her, and knelt, using one hand to draw Cinder’s gaze up to meet her own. “But worry not, sweet child. I have another task for you, so that you can prove yourself worthy of my trust once more.”

-/-

They were walking now, looking for the door. Ironwood was still leading, the crow sat on his shoulders and guiding him using his ‘crow sight’, whatever that truly was. He was still chattering about Death’s-blades and Death iron.

“But the best part about a Death’s-blade,” he said, and was interrupted by a shout of pain from Jaune, who stopped and hit his knees, clutching his head in both hands.

He’d been bringing up the rear with Pyrrha, who was talking about shield techniques as they walked, and now they hurried back to gather around him. Pyrrha knelt and touched his shoulder gently, waving her hand to the others to back off a little.

“Jaune?”

He said nothing for a long time, whimpering and digging his hands into his eyes. When he spoke, it was obviously with a lot of pain.

“The- the Queen,” he said. “Is she- she a woman with paper-white skin and black and-and red eyes?”

The crow squawked, and flew down to sit on his shoulder. “She is. How do you know? Can you see her?”

“I- I think so.” He curled around himself where he knelt in the snow. “We go-gotta get back. The village is- in trouble.”

“Hey, hey easy.” The crow rubbed against Jaune’s neck. “Do you often get visions like this?”

“So-sometimes. They don’t usu-ally hurt though.”

“Well, I bet they’re not usually about the Queen, either.” He turned to Ironwood. “You got any shielding spells in that stick of yours?”

Ironwood shook his head. “I used my last one on Ruby, earlier.” He passed his staff to Penny and knelt beside Jaune. “Have you been given any training to process your visions?”

Jaune shook his head, and whimpered again. “Why are- we still  _ here _ ?” He said. “We have to get  _ back _ . We have to- to help them!”

“Your village?”

“Yes! She’s se-sending the woman who a-ttacked us to att-ttack the village instead!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the next chapter is going to be a flashback chapter! We get to see more about what happened twenty-five years ago the last time the elves attacked.


	6. Intermission 1: The Girl You Once Knew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Glynda makes a bad choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a flashback! Let's pause the story to take a look at what happened twenty-five years ago, the last time the elves appeared in their village.
> 
> I hope y'all enjoy the friendship between Tai and Glynda because I fell in love with them while I was writing this.

Glynda drummed her fingers on the table, and fumed. The nerve! The very nerve! She had just as much right to learn witching as any other girl in this town! And yet that- that  _ old woman _ had told her she lacked the things she’d need! Who did she think she even was?! What right did she have-

-well, aside from being the senior witch in their village. Still. What had she got that Glynda didn’t? Glynda could be cryptic and unhelpful just as much as any witch! And she could do it in heels, which the witches in their village didn’t want to, because they didn’t seem to understand there was such a thing as  _ style _ .

While Glynda fumed, getting angrier and angrier, she became aware of a knocking on her door. She spun around and glared at it, wishing she had magic so she could just open the door with a look. After a moment of completely failing to manifest telekinesis, she strode over to the door, pleased when she only wobbled a  _ little _ on the high, thin heels she had adopted recently.

It was Tai, beaming at her over a potted plant clutched in both hands. When he saw how annoyed she was, though, his face fell.

“...I take it things didn’t go well?”

She tried to glare at him pointedly, but her anger melted away and she finally sighed, stepping aside to let him in. “No, it didn’t. She refused me. Did you really bring me a potted plant?”

“Well I know you like plants… and I know witches are big on herbs and stuff…” He held up the pot hopefully, and finally managed to get a weak smile out of Glynda in response. He set the plant on the table and held open his arms, wrapping her up in a comforting hug when she stepped into them. “Hey, don’t let it get you down.”

“I just want to be a witch,” she mumbled into his middle. “Why won’t she teach me?”

“I don’t know. But I do know that if it’s what you want, you aren’t going to let one rejection stand in your way. Otherwise you wouldn’t be my favorite Glynda.”

“I’m your only Glynda.”

“You don’t know that. I could have other Glyndas.”

“Name one.”

“Um, well…”

He was saved from having to bullshit an answer, though, by the door flying open and Qrow stumbling into the room. Summer came in behind him, a sigh plastered on her face. Glynda stepped away from Tai and folded her arms, only to be swept up by one of Qrow’s arms around her shoulders, his other hand coming up to ruffle her hair playfully.

“Hey, kiddo! How’d it go with Mother Pearl?”

Glynda made a disgruntled noise and pushed away from him, only to find herself beside Summer instead. A furious blush crawled up her cheeks when she noticed her proximity to the young woman.

Over her head, Tai mouthed ‘not good’ at Qrow and Summer, while Glynda hung her head in shame.

“She turned me down.”

“Ah.” Summer gave her a sympathetic look and reached into her cloak. “In that case, this is for you,” she said, taking a potted plant from within its depths. “To cheer you in your time of rejection.

Glynda stared at it, blush darkening. “Did you really bring me a potted plant to cheer me up?”

“Yes.”

“...what would you have brought me if I’d succeeded?”

“The same plant, but with a tone of congratulation.” She beamed hopefully. “Do you like it?”

Glynda took the plant and mumbled a “‘s okay” before setting it beside Tai’s. Qrow tapped his chin thoughtfully.

“Were we all supposed to bring plants? Cause all I brought was this.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a bottle of wine. “You know, to celebrate. Or to drown your sorrows. You know, whichever.”

“Qrow!” Tai swatted Qrow’s arm. “She’s just a kid, you can’t get her  _ drunk _ !”

“Aw, come on! She’s not that much younger than I was when I started drinking.”

“And if that’s not an anti-drinking campaign I don’t know what is,” Summer said. She put a companionable arm around Glynda’s shoulder, politely oblivious to her spreading blush, and steered her toward the door. “Come on, let’s go for a walk and leave these two behind.”

“But… this is my house…”

“And I’m sure the boys will be happy to do your chores for you, so they don’t go neglected or get left for your parents. Right?”

“Uh- oh, yeah, absolutely!” Tai said, elbowing Qrow and getting a mumbled agreement out of him. Glynda gave them both a grateful smile and followed Summer out of the house and down the path through the village to the witches cottage where she studied with the village’s  _ other _ witch.

Miss Dia was a lot nicer than Mother Pearl, a lot classier, and a lot more willing to teach a young girl who wanted to be a witch. But she was also not as powerful as Mother Pearl, and Glynda was determined to learn from the best.

(Besides, Miss Dia had Summer to teach already, and even if Miss Dia did take her on, she’d always be junior to Summer, and she didn’t want that. The witches were the most senior guardians in a village, and Glynda was aiming for the top. Not that she intended to tell Summer any of this. She’d probably give her another lecture on how ambition was nice, but too much ambition was counterintuitive to the true spirit of witchery and guardianship.)

“I hope you’re not planning to give up after one rejection,” Summer said, once they were past the cottage and into the forest. The sun was coming down through the leaves, leaving green-gold drops of light dancing around them. Glynda ignored them. She didn’t want pretty nature images, she wanted to be a witch.

“It’s not the rejection,” Glynda admitted, after Summer said nothing for a long time. That was a trick she had, one that rankled Glynda deeply but worked every time: she said nothing, and her silence sucked up any resolve Glynda ever had to brood and sulk and feel sorry for herself. She waited through more of that hungry silence, and added, “Do you know what she told me? Why she said she wouldn’t teach me? She said I didn’t have what it  _ takes _ to be a witch. That I was just a little girl playing games.”

“So?”

“So  _ what _ ?”

“You still want her to teach you, right?”

“Of course I do. She’s the best. If I want to be the best, I have to learn from the best.”

“So ask her again. As many times as it takes.”

“And what if she gets tired of me asking and turns me into something unnatural?”

“Then you figure out how to change back, and ask again.” An arm around her shoulder. “Glynda, you can’t give up after the first failure. You have to keep trying. Otherwise Mother Pearl is right, and you  _ are _ just a silly child playing games.”

“So that’s it? It’s a test, is it?”

“Oh yes. Everything in witching’s a test. You might as well go ahead and learn that before you even get started.”

-/-

Once the girls had gone, Qrow rummaged around in the cupboard for cups, then thought better of it and opened the bottle before drinking straight from it. Then he sat down to watch Tai cleaning up the kitchen with too much familiarity given it wasn’t his house.

“I take it Glynda spends a lot of time roping you into doing her chores for her.”

“ _ Helping _ her with her chores,” Tai corrected. “And I don’t mind. She has a lot of them, and they don’t leave her much time to study.”

“Tch. That kid’s got your wrapped around her finger, you know that?”

“She just needs someone to pay attention to her. Her parents aren’t around much and she can’t seem to connect with any of the other village kids.”

“That’s cause she’s a snob.” At Tai’s annoyed look, he held up his hands defensively. “Look, I like her as much as you do, but you can’t deny I’m right. She thinks she’s better than everyone, and no one wants to hang around someone like that.”

“We do.”

“Yeah, well, I’m the town drunk and you’re the town softy. We don’t exactly have people clamoring to hang around with us, either. Birds of a feather, or something like that. All us rejects got is each other, we gotta stick together.”

“We’re not rejects.” Tai finished the dishes and came over to sit beside Qrow, taking the bottle and taking a swig. Qrow made a noise.

“Please. We’re guardians. Normal people don’t become guardians, rejects do. Ergo, we’re rejects.”

“Rejects who got our position because someone gave us a chance. So not  _ that _ rejected.”

“And why do you think we jumped so much at the first person to show some interest and support?” He took the bottle back. “However you spin it, we’re rejects, and so’s Glynda. And that’s why she’ll be a witch, Mother Pearl’s help or not. Cause after awhile you get tired of getting rejected and decide to kick all that rejection in the face and do what it takes.” He pointed the bottle at Tai. “So I suggest you get your hands on another potted plant, so you can give it to Glynda when she convinces Mother Pearl to take her on anyway.”

Tai smiled, and took the bottle away from him, setting it aside. “Why can’t you be this supportive to her face?”

“That’s not how I work. Gimme that back if you’re not gonna drink it.”

“No, you’ve had enough.”

“Mean.”

-/-

When Summer had told Glynda to keep trying with Mother Pearl, what she had probably meant was ‘try again tomorrow’, or at least later. She probably hadn’t meant for Glynda to storm her way across the village right that moment and bang on Mother Pearl’s door until the old woman finally opened it, glaring down a sharp nose at her while she breathed heavily and mentally kicked herself over her rash actions.

“I’m  _ going _ to be a witch,” she found herself saying, quite without her say-so. “And I’m going to do it with or without your teaching.”

“Good,” Mother Pearl said. “Then you needn’t bother me with your silly play-pretends any longer.”

And shut the door in her stunned face. Glynda let out a frustrated noise and hauled off and kicked the door, which succeeded in doing nothing but bruising her toe through the thin material on her shoes. She hopped back on one foot, broke the heel on  _ that _ shoe, and nearly toppled over, only to have a pair of strong arms catch her and steady her.

“Skunked again, huh?” Tai said, setting her gently onto her feet. “I had a feeling you’d be here. Are you okay?”

“I’m  _ fine _ . After all, it’s not like I’ve just had my  _ dreams _ crushed or anything.” And she  _ wasn’t _ going to start crying in front of Tai, no matter how badly she felt. “I just stubbed my toes,” she added, when she felt the tears welling up unbidden. “I may have broken them.”

“Of course,” he said, politely pretending to ignore her obvious attempts to not cry. “Why don’t I walk you home then, and get you some water to soak that foot in? To help the swelling, I mean.”

She sighed, and looped an arm around his waist, leaning into him and taking the offered out to save face while he helped her limp home.

Anyway, her foot  _ did _ hurt. So it wasn't a lie.

-/-

The next weeks passed like that. Every morning and every afternoon Glynda went back to the cottage, demanding that Mother Pearl take her on and teach her. A few times she followed the woman on her rounds, asking questions that got the occasional answer and sometimes being asked to help carry things. She felt that she was getting somewhere when Mother Pearl invited her in for tea, almost a month after she’d started asking. She was certain her persistence was finally paying off.

“Tell me, girl,” Mother Pearl said, once they were sat comfortably with their tea. “Why do you wish to be a witch?”

A thousand possible answers passed through her head, a thousand responses that would help her pass this new test. She’d been expecting this question, had rehearsed her answer all month, but now that Mother Pearl’s eyes were boring into her, she felt that while the truth  _ might _ hinder her, a lie most certainly would. And she wouldn’t be able to come back from that.

“Nobody likes me,” she said finally, staring down at the cup in her shaking hand. “Nobody likes witches, either, not really, but they need them, and they’re afraid of them.”

One eyebrow rose a fraction. “You want people to be afraid of you?”

Glynda hesitated, and looked away, and then looked back as hard as she could.

“Yes! I want them to second-guess themselves when they think of crossing me and I want to cut them down with a look and I want them to worry about what I can do to them if  they annoy me!” She curled her hand into a fist. “Nobody is ever going to like me, but if I can make them afraid of me, then... then it…” She shook her head. “Anyway, being feared is better than being liked.”

“If you can make them afraid of you, then it won’t matter if they like you or not. Is that what you were going to say?” She sighed, and drained her cup. “I had hoped that allowing you to see what my life is this past month would dissuade you from this foolish dream of yours, but clearly-“

She broke off, staring down into her cup. Glynda watched several emotions pass over her face before settling on stern. She glared.

“You want my advice, girl? Give up. Let go of your silly dream of being a witch. Witches are guardians, and they have a duty to their village. Fear is a necessity to that duty, but not something to be desired for its own sake. Go! I won’t teach you.”

Glynda gaped at her, and then sprang to her feet. “Fine! If you won’t teach me, then I’ll teach myself! I’ll learn to be a witch with or without your help!”

And with that she spun on her heel and stormed out, slamming the door so hard the cottage shook from the force of it.

Once she was gone, Pearl reached over and took up her cup, looking into it at what she already knew she was going to find. She sighed. “Poor girl,” she said. “You’ll get what you want, soon enough. I hope it’s worth the price you’ll pay to have it.”

-/-

Glynda didn’t go back to her own house. She knew she’d find Tai there, since he’d taken to doing her chores for her so that she could spend more time persuading Mother Pearl. She felt bad about it, but at the same time… well, she really hated doing chores. If he was going to offer, then she wasn’t going to fight him on the matter.

Instead she stormed into the woods, going where her feet took her until anger melted into regret. What was she going to do? She kept saying she’d become a witch on her own if she must, but where did she even start?

By the time she made it from regret to despair, she could feel hot tears pooling, and she scrubbed them away irritably. When they stubbornly returned, she decided it didn’t matter, out here out of sight of anyone, and let them fall as they liked.

She wasn’t surprised to find herself at the standing stones. There were about a dozen of them scattered throughout the forest, but the circle was the only place they were concentrated. She stopped in front of the circle and scrubbed her tears away, squinting into the ring of stones. If she moved her head  _ just so _ , it almost seemed to be snowing on the other side of the stones.

That was foolish. It was probably because she’d been crying. Her eyes were playing tricks on her.

Summer had told her about the stone ring, and the other standing stones. She’d explained that they were what kept the gentry out of their world. That if they came, they’d cause havoc. That one of the jobs of the guardians was to protect their village from the gentry.

“I wish the gentry  _ would _ come,” Glynda grumbled, in full blown sulk mode. “Anyway, I've read the stories, and elves are nice,” she added, feeling very brave because she’d said their name when she knew she shouldn’t. “I bet  _ they’d _ like me!” She clenched her fists, and hung her head, more tears falling unhindered. “Maybe…”

There was a sudden pressure in the air, a buzzing that rose to a dull roar in the back of her head until, with a sudden release, she found herself standing in the middle of a crop circle. She stood up and looked at it. Two circles and an oval.

Not an ordinary crop circle, then.

Gross.

-/-

Qrow was perched precariously on top of his scythe, a pose that not only allowed him to survey the area around him better than if he were on the ground, but also served to look really cool and impressive to any attractive passersby who might see him.

Unfortunately, any and all potential passersby had known him since he was young, and it was hard to be impressed by someone when you remember that time they ate a bucketful of dirt on a dare then got sick when they swallowed a whole worm.

Still, it looked pretty cool.

In the end, he was glad that there  _ wasn’t _ anyone around to potentially be impressed by it, because while he was standing there, rocking slightly to maintain balance, he got hit with a stream of visions so vivid and so painful that he toppled backwards, kicking his scythe over and nearly succeeding in impaling himself with it. He lay groaning, one hand covering his eyes, and tried to process the visions he’d been sent.

“Glynda,” he mumbled, hauling himself to his feet. His head was throbbing; he reached for his flask and thought better of it. Killing his visions before he could do anything with them was never a good idea.

“ _ Glynda _ ,” he said again, more insistently. He had to get to her- he moved his hand, so only his right eye was covered, the left glinting while he tried to pinpoint her location.

Once he’d found her- up at the standing stones, because  _ of course _ \- he took off running.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I'm not sure how clear I made it, a note on ages: Tai, Summer, and Qrow (and by extension Raven) are all in their mid-late twenties (Qrow and Raven are actually thirty). Thanks to certain spoilers, the STRQ+GJ group in this fic has the biggest age range I've ever used for them. That part is irrelevant, I just noticed while I was ironing out said spoilers and felt like sharing.


	7. Intermission 2: The Girl You Once Knew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The elves invade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally gonna space out the flashback chapters but I was working on chapter five and realized that I only have a few chapters left on the main story and don't have room. So now the intermission is a three chapter flashback arc in the middle of the fic. Enjoy.

-/-

Glynda was still staring at the crop circle when she felt the change- the cold bite of winter and snow, that spread around the clearing. She shivered, and then found herself surrounded by warmth, fire-warmth, and there was a woman inside the stone ring. Glynda inhaled sharply.

She was  _ beautiful _ \- she was the most beautiful woman Glynda had ever seen, and not much older than Glynda herself. She was stunning, she was elegant, she was poised, she was everything Glynda secretly wished she could be, and she was smiling a smile Glynda felt was reserved for her and her alone.

“Hello, dear one,” she said. “Were you the one who called us?”

“I… maybe?” Glynda shuffled shyly, and suddenly wished she weren’t wearing the heels she’d been so proud of before- how clumsy she must seem in them! To this woman, this wonderful, beautiful,  _ glamorous _ woman, she must seem like a child playing at being grown up.

The woman laughed, and she sounded like music. “Come now, dear. Don’t be shy. I came because I felt the loneliness in your heart- it  _ was _ you, wasn’t it? You wished for someone to be your friend.”

Glynda hung her head at that, and gave a tiny, barely perceptible nod. Pathetic, too, she was  _ pathetic _ . No wonder she had no friends- how could anyone ever love someone so- so-

_ Snooty _ , her brain supplied, reminding her of comments from her peers, late-night conversations eavesdropping on her parents, and even Qrow’s teasing, sometimes, when they argued.  _ Arrogant. Proud. Defiant. _ But proud of what? Arrogant of what? She could see, now, how foolish she’d been. She was nothing, nothing at all-

“I can be your friend,” the woman said, and Glynda felt that warmth again, surrounding her like an embrace. “There are lots of us here, in my world, and every one of us would love to be your friend. Wouldn’t you like that?”

Would she? Of course she would! To be friends with a being so wonderful- so astonishing- Glynda found herself drifting closer to the circle.

“How- how do I get you to be my friends?”

The woman laughed again. Glynda felt it deep in her soul. “You only have to invite us, of course! We can only enter your world if we’re welcome- it wouldn’t be polite otherwise, now would it?” She moved a little closer, and her eyes glowed like firelight. “Won’t you let us come join you?”

Glynda hesitated, now. She wanted to say yes- she wanted so badly to say yes, but something felt- wrong. Off. Was this the right choice?

“Tell me, dear one,” the woman said. “Why were you crying?”

“I-“ Glynda halted her thoughts, and felt a blush spreading in her cheeks. She looked away. “I… I asked the senior witch to train me and, and she refused me. She told me to give up my dream.”

“How very cruel of her,” the woman said, and Glynda could  _ feel _ the sympathy in her tone. “Witches are like that sometimes- so greedy with their power. But my kind, on the other hand… why, I would be happy to give you power, all the power you want. You only have to allow me into your world.”

“I- I-“

-/-

Qrow ran through the forest, dodging low branches and high roots and sending small animals skitterng off into the undergrowth without noticing any of it. Dominating his vision was a silver thread, pulsing faintly as it guided him to Glynda. She was in danger, he had to get to her quickly-

-he skidded to a halt as magic exploded into his vision, bursts of silver light that threatened to overwhelm him, and then put on a fresh burst of speed. She couldn’t have- there was no way she was that stupid, she  _ wouldn’t _ have-

-he burst onto the hill with his scythe already swinging, and hit a wall of fire that knocked him out from the force of the heat alone. He growled irritably and closed his human eye, blocking out what his brain was telling him he should see to rely solely on his sight. But the fire remained, dancing sparks into the sky, and in the center stood Glynda, with an elf beside her, one too-long arm wrapped around her shoulder.

He opened his eye again, and saw the beautiful young woman that Glynda must think she was. He snarled.

“Get the fuck away from her,” he said. “Glynda… Glynda, kiddo, it’s gonna be okay. I’ll get you out of there.”

“Is that so?” The elf turned to Glynda, tightening her grip a little. “Tell me, dear little one, do you want to go anywhere? With him? I’m your friend, remember. Would you like to stay here with me, or go with this man?”

Glynda blinked slowly. Qrow closed his eye again, and now he could see the silver stars in her eyes, the glamour of the elves planted firmly. He was too late.

“I want to stay with you,” she said quietly.

“What?! Aw, come on, Glynda, don’t be like that! It’s your old pal Qrow, don’t you want to come with me? We can-“ He cast about helplessly for some idea, anything. “We can- we can go see Summer. You’ll like that, won’t you? If we go visit Summer? She- she’ll make you cookies and, and maybe she’ll even show you a little magic.” If anyone could help Glynda shake the elves’ influence it was Summer. “You’ll like that, won’t you Glynda? You just have to come with me.”

For just a moment Glynda looked hesitant, and then she turned away. “I don’t want to go with you,” she said. “And I don’t want to see Summer. Or anyone. Cinder is going to teach me magic, she’s going to give me power. I’ll finally be feared, like I want.”

“Po- wh- no. No no no… come on, Glynda, snap out of it! She’s not what you think she is, she’s not going to give you what she says- listen, come on, kiddo, just come with me…”

“I am not a child,” she said, her eyes glowing while behind her, three of the standing stones rose into the air. Cinder smiled triumphantly.

“Your promised power is already coming to you, dear one,” she murmured. Glynda looked shocked, and the stones came crashing back to earth. Cinder leaned closer, so close now. “Do you feel it? The Queen can give you more. Do you want to meet the Queen, dear little Glynda?”

Glynda hesitated, and it was this that led Qrow to making the decision he did: Glynda was under the elf’s influence, but there was still a part of her in control, a part of her that understood the horror of what she was bringing.

Fire be damned, Qrow dropped his scythe and launched himself at them both, catching the elf with a fist to her face and grabbing Glynda. He tossed her over his shoulder and ran the moment the elf was off of her, ignoring the flames and her protests and the fists pounding on his back.

“Sorry, Glynda,” he said. “You’ll thank me later.”

-/-

Summer was at the smithy, watching Raven work. It was her favorite thing to do that didn’t involve magic, partly because Raven was  _ very _ good at what she did but also because Raven was very pretty, and Summer was very weak.

“What are you making?” she asked, feet swinging slightly from her perch at a safe distance from the forge. Raven didn’t answer for several moments- she was concentrating- and then held up the lump of metal she’d been hammering. It looked, to Summer’s untrained eye, like any other kind of metal, but she could feel the tell-tale pressure of Death-iron rolling off of it.

“It’s a shield,” Raven finally said. “Or it will be. A gift for Iris’s wedding with Frost. If she’s going to abandon her knighthood for marriage-“

“You know the rules of guardianship, Raven,” Summer broke in. “Knights are bound to single villages and nobles must care for many. She’s not  _ abandoning her knighthood for marriage _ , she’s choosing a new set of duties.”

“-then I’m going to at least leave her the means to protect her new home if the need arises.”

She gave Summer a pointed look, and got an amused smile in return. “You’re a big softie,” Summer said.

“No one will ever believe you if you tell them.”

Any reply that Summer might be about to make was cut off by both women raising their head at once and looking around. Raven’s eye flashed. “The door,” she said, but Summer had already hurried over and opened it, just before Qrow burst through with Glynda thrown over his shoulder.

Glynda had been protesting before, but the moment she was in the forge- surrounded by iron- she went limp. Summer hurried over and took her from him, while Raven cleared a place on her work table for them to lay her out on. Summer rested a hand on her forehead.

“Feverish,” she said. “What happened?”

“She invited the damn- she invited  _ them _ ,” Qrow said. “And she knocked down the stones,” he added. “A couple of them, anyway.  _ Enough _ of them. We don’t do something quick this place is going to be crawling with-  _ them _ .”

“Dumb kid,” Raven said. She bent over a storage chest and pulled out what looked like an ordinary horseshoe, which she placed under Glynda’s hand and folded her fingers around it. “What did she want to go doing something like that for?”

“We were all dumb kids once,” Qrow said vaguely. Glynda’s words, the echo of a promise to be feared, was still bouncing around his head, and he needed to figure it out before he said anything to anyone else about it. He didn’t want to go giving anyone the wrong idea.

“Yes, but you were an absolute moron and  _ you _ never invited the gentry into our world.”

“We all make mistakes. Did you finish repairing my sword?” he added. “I left my scythe back at the stones.”

“It’s on the wall. You’re going back?”

“Got to. I’ve got a job to do. You coming with, Summer?”

“Of course. Stay here with Glynda, Raven. I’ll send one of the witches to see to her but for now she shouldn’t be left alone.”

“All right.”

She didn’t say be careful, and there were no longing looks. She just set about laying iron around Glynda’s still form, an added precaution on top of being inside a place of iron already.

If she’d known it was the last time she’d see her brother, she might have done otherwise.

-/-

They ran into Tai on their way back to the village. He didn’t have magic or sight, but he didn’t need either to realize something was wrong. The three converged, and Qrow very quickly filled him in.

“What do you need?” Tai asked, as soon as he understood. He shot a worried look down the path to the smithy.

“Go with Qrow,” Summer said. “I’ll go get Mother Pearl, she’ll be able to take care of Glynda, and she’ll tell me what else.”

“Good. Come on, Tai.” He turned to leave, but Tai caught Summer’s arm, and gave her an imploring look.

“It’s not her fault,” Tai said. “Make sure she knows.”

“We’ll deal with that later,” Summer said, and took off to the north of town, where Mother Pearl lived, while Qrow and Tai headed east, toward the standing stones.

-/-

Mother Pearl was waiting outside her door for Summer when she approached. She nodded when she saw her expression.

“What has the child done?” she asked, without preamble. Summer stopped short.

“You knew.”

“There are some things one is told but unable to prevent. She she has called them here, then? And is now under their influence?”

Summer nodded. “She’s at the forge. Can you help her?”

“I believe so.” She held up a hand, and Summer saw a whisp of light vanish into the fading light toward the south of town. “Dia will come. We’ll do what we can. Go alert the others, and protect the village.”

“Yes, ma’am. And, please, ma’am. She’s just a child. Be kind to her.”

“I will do what must be done, and say what must be said.” Mother Pearl gave her a regretful look. “I can only hope that I don’t make things worse in doing so. Now go.”

-/-

By the time Qrow and Tai got to the standing stones, there was evidence of elves, but no actual elves. But the grass was trampled and destroyed around the stones. Qrow picked up his scythe- by the looks of it, the elves had given it a wide berth- and shifted his sword to his back instead.

“Right, so they’re here now. But she never got a chance to invite the Queen- so at least  _ She’s _ not here. Small favors. What now?”

“I guess now we go hunting,” Tai said. “Summer will get the other knights once she’s taken care of things, let’s get a headstart.”

“Take this, then,” Qrow said, unbuckling and passing his sword over.

“Qrow, you know I don’t like using weapons.”

“Yeah? Well I also know that I outrank you. Take the sword, Tai.” At Tai’s defiant look, he added, “I’m offering it as a friend. I can make it an order as your sentinel.”

“Fine.” Tai took it and strapped it onto his back. “But only so I have some iron on me.”

“Great, whatever. Let’s go- they’re already at the village now.”

-/-

After leaving Mother Pearl, Summer headed first to the house at the northeast corner of the village, where Li lived. He was bringing in firewood when she appeared, breathing heavily, but by the time she’d caught her breath to tell him he’d dropped the wood and drawn the knives at his side. She pointed him to the elves already appearing at the borders, and headed off to find Leo and Iris.

While she ran, she made a mental note to figure out how Pearl and Dia did their communication spell. It was a lot quicker and less exhausting than running and finding each person she needed.

-/-

By the time Summer had alerted Leo, the elves had already appeared. Many of the villagers had fled into the woods, but Summer heard some of them in their homes as well. She pointed Leo at one such house, and hurried on-

-she met Iris on the way, already wearing her armor, sword and shield in hand. Summer gave her a relieved smile.

“I was coming to find you,” she said. “The- gentry are here. They’re attacking the village.”

“I know,” Iris said. “Frost saw, and sent me. Where do you need me?”

“Most of the villagers have fled into the woods. Try to find them and send them to the manor.”

“Understood. The others?”

“Li and Leo already know. Tai and Qrow went to the stone ring, and I’m going after them.”

“The witches?”

“At the forge with Raven and… and Glynda.” Summer saw the shift in Iris’s expression at the mention to the girl. She cut her off before she could comment. “She’ll have to bear her consequences for this already, Iris. Don’t make it harder on her.”

“I don’t mean to,” Iris said stiffly. “I just wonder that no one saw this coming.”

_ Someone did _ , Summer thought, and gestured once more at the village. “Go. Find the villagers. I’m going after Tai and Qrow.”

-/-

Tai and Qrow had been fighting their way through the forest, tearing down elves left and right as they found them. Qrow’s scythe made shimmering arcs in the air as it moved, but his sword stayed on Tai’s back, acting more as a shield than a weapon- Tai was simply far more comfortable with bare fists than any kind of blade.

As they reached one of the solitary stones, though, they came to a halt, Tai leaning back against the stone and panting while Qrow supported himself on his scythe.

“Way too many,” Qrow said, reaching for his flask with his free hand. “I hope the others have been alerted by now.”

“Summer will tell them,” Tai said. “They’re probably dealing with things at the village right now. Can you see anything?”

“Buncha magic,” he replied. “It’s concentrated in a few pockets, but it’s pretty spread out overall.” He blinked rapidly, clearing away the images, and straightened up. “Ready to keep going?”

“Yeah, let’s go. Work our way around to the next solitary?”

“Sounds good.

-/-

Dia and Raven stood aside, keeping quiet watch while Pearl tried to reach into Glynda’s mind and pull her out of the elves’ glamour. It wasn’t easy, and the strain was evident on Pearl’s brow.

“The girl has too much power,” Dia said quietly, shaking her head. “Someone should have taken that in hand by now.”

“She did  _ ask _ ,” Raven pointed out. She wasn’t as fond of the kid as her fellow guardians seemed to be, but even she felt it was unfair for Pearl to refuse her tutelage for the sake of a mere test.

“You know better than anyone that witchery is more than a matter of asking,” Pearl said. Her reminder brought a red tinge to Raven’s cheeks, and she turned away to the metal she’d been working earlier rather than answer. Pearl opened her eyes, and lowered her hand. “Her mind sits behind shields of her own making, but those I could break through were they set by her own power. There’s another at work here.”

“The Queen?” Dia asked.

“No,” Pearl said, disdain and judgment dripping from each letter. Dia’s eyebrows flew up.

“ _ Him _ ? You think  _ He’s _ laid claim to her?”

Pearl nodded, then rested her hand on Glynda’s forehead again, and closed her eyes. The magic she used was almost visible now. Raven gave Dia a questioning look.

“Who do you mean?”

“The King,” Dia whispered, reaching over to touch the nearest bit of iron as added defense. “The gods help the child if the King has marked her.”

-/-

When Summer reached the ring, the boys had gone. She felt around, seeking them out, but before she could find them she heard a voice behind her, and turned.

“Hello, witch,” said the woman inside the circle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus points for anyone who guesses what I'm going for with Jaune's family's names.


	8. Intermission 3: The Girl You Once Knew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Glynda fixes what she broke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not suuuper satisfied with this but it's one of those things where if I keep trying to write it I'm going to throw something, so I'm putting it up as is. I'll fix it in the second draft or something. (It's not even proofed because I'm sick of rereading it, so if you catch any typos feel free to let me know.)

Glynda found herself in a room filled with steam, and shadows that danced eerily around her, and the overpowering smell of sweat and musk and animal hide. Her feet moved her through the steam of her own accord, and as she went on she heard voices that she could never seem to pinpoint, following her through the fog.

After what felt like an age of walking, she began to get annoyed.

“Who’s there?” She demanded, and the steam seemed to part to reveal a figure seated before her. He sat on a throne, or perhaps just a chair, and she turned her gaze from the chair to the man in question. He was lounging, watching her carefully through deep brown eyes. He had silver hair, and a pair of silver antlers springing from it.

He looked simultaneously as old as life, and as old as her father, and not much older than herself. Her eyes slid back to the chair, and her nose wrinkled.

“I take it  _ you’re _ the one responsible for the crop circles, then,” she said, and his eyes crinkled into a smile.

“Everyone needs a hobby, my dear,” he said.

“Yours is gross,” she said. “Where is this place? Why have you brought me here?”

“It’s my world,” he said idly. “Or, rather, a shadow of it, which exists in your mind for the sake of communication.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Explain.”

“This is a dream.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “Currently you, that is, your body, is unconscious at the forge, while your witches and your blacksmith attempt to revive you. I’ve placed barriers to prevent them reaching you just yet, but I’ll release those barriers as soon as I’ve spoken with you.”

“Spoken with me about  _ what _ ?”

“About the Queen, whom you’ve very foolishly called into your world in a fit of pique.”

“So you’ve come to scold me?” she sneered.

“No. I’ve come to give you the power to stop her.”

This brought silence, and he gave her a small, knowing smile. “You thirst for power, don’t you?” he said. “It’s there in your soul. You hunger for it- and not for noble reasons, either.” He waited, but when she said nothing he pressed on. “My Queen has already offered you power, but you should know that nothing she gives ever comes without a price. If you take the power she gives you, you’ll regret it.”

“And you?” she asked. “I suppose you’ll give me power for free?”

“No. But I  _ will _ offer you a much fairer bargain.” He gave her a look. “Nothing comes without a price, my dear, least of all power.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then you will leave here powerless, and the Queen will destroy your village and take away all that you hold dear. But do not mistake me- if you refuse, you  _ will _ be allowed to leave here. I will not hold you here against your will.”

Glynda watched him, for how long was unclear, eyes narrowed in suspicion. She folded her arms. “The Queen will attack my village? Why?”

“Because it’s there. She does not like humans, my Queen. She does not like anything she can’t control, and humans, for all their weaknesses, are curiously resistant. They bite back in ways she can never predict.” He chuckled softly. “And humans say  _ our _ kind are unpredictable.”

“And you? What do  _ you _ think of humans?”

“I think you’re all  _ fascinating _ ,” he said.

He smiled. There was something unsettling about his smile- it was both patronizing and sad at once. It was that smile, more than anything, that gave her pause- it felt a bit like being a butterfly, under the scrutiny of a collector. His fascination, the smile said, would do nothing to protect her, should he decide his curiosity was best served by harming her. That he would regret his acts but not- and this was the important part-  _ not _ allow that regret to stand in his way.

She took a step back.

“You’ll allow me to leave even if I refuse?”

“Oh yes. I always keep my word, after all.”

“Then I’m going. I don’t need your help. If the Queen attacks- we’ll stop her ourselves.”

There was that sad look again, but he nodded. “Very well. But should you change your mind- listen carefully, my dear- if you change your mind, you may look for me at the Long Man. You know of the Long Man?”

Glynda looked askance at him. “Tai says I’m not to go near that part of the island,” she said slowly.

His eyes crinkled again. “And?”

“...anyway it’s just a bunch of old earthworks. Sometimes the men go up there and dance around in their altogether and it’s gross. What’s the big deal?”

“I shall not pass judgment on your ability to obey authority,” he said, clearly amused. “But should you wish to find me again, that’s where I’ll be. Ask your blacksmith for one of the special horseshoes. She’ll know what you mean. Bring it with you, or you’ll be trapped in my world. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Very well,” he said. “I release you, then. And Glynda, dear one? Do be careful.”

-/-

Glynda came awake suddenly and almost painfully, gasping at finding herself out of the strange, humid place. She sat up, and found the witches and Raven watching her. While she tried to orient herself, Mother Pearl leaned over her, squinting. Glynda leaned away, unnerved, and was prodded for her efforts.

“Tell me what you saw,” she said. Glynda frowned.

“What’s it to you?”

“Girl, you may have just wrought destruction onto our entire village! Now tell me what you saw!”

“I- there was a- a man!” she replied, quite against her will. “He was- he had antlers, and- and he promised me the- the power to defeat the Queen.”

“And you refused him,” Pearl said. Glynda didn’t see the expressions on the other women’s faces at that, but she would have been pleased by Raven’s smug look, as if she’d expected nothing less. Glynda’s brow furrowed.

“How do you know?”

“Because, girl, if you had taken the power the King offered you,  _ I would know it _ . What else did he say?”

“He- he said that the Queen would destroy the village because she hates humans. And that-” She broke off. She’d been about to tell them about the Long Man, but the way Pearl was looking at her, she didn’t want to. It was her dream- she shouldn’t have to tell it if she didn’t want to. “-that- that he found humans very fascinating.”

“Yes, well, that’s not much of a gift either. Well.” She rubbed her hands together. “It’s time we dealt with these elves- oh, oh dear.”

“What’s going on?” Glynda asked.

“ _ She’s _ here,” Pearl said. She turned her attention to Glynda. “You want to be a witch?”

“What?”

“You want to be a witch- you want power, you want to be feared, and you wanted it so badly that you brought the  _ Queen _ here- so tell me- why do you want to be a witch?”

“Because I do! And I didn’t mean to bring the Queen here!” Glynda ran both hands through her hair. “If you’d just taught me like I asked-!”

“No!” Pearl glared. “Your actions are your own, whatever their reasons- tell me again. Tell me the  _ truth _ ! Why. Do you want. To be a witch.”

“Because- because I want people to be afraid of me! I already  _ said _ \- why are you asking again?”

But Pearl’s mouth was a thin line. She shook her head. “Still nothing. Very well, come along, girl. Let’s see what else I can teach you.”

“What  _ else _ ? You haven’t taught me anything yet!”

“I’ve taught you plenty. It’s your own doing that you haven’t bothered to learn it.”

She caught Glynda’s shoulder in a tight grip and steered her to the door. Dia and Raven hurried after her, Raven grabbing her sword on the way out. Outside, Pearl hesitated, and turned to Raven.

“Go find the knights and protect the villagers,” she said.

“I’m coming with you.”

“You will do as you’re told.” Pearl’s eyes flashed angrily. “I will soon have more than enough people to mind as it is, and the Queen attacks the mind- as a seer you will be far more susceptible to her attacks. Go to the others- you will be of no use against the Queen.”

For a moment, it seemed like Raven would refuse again, but then she nodded, and turned away, closing her left eye as she did and taking off at a run. Once she was gone, Glynda and the two witches hurried in the direction of the stone ring, Glynda lagging behind reluctantly.

-/-

They reached the stones to find Tai fighting a group of elves, much stronger elves than the ones that had attacked the village. In the center of the battle were Summer and a woman- possibly a woman, with paper-white skin covered in black markings, black-and-red eyes glowing with power.

They weren’t fighting, at least to all appearances they weren’t fighting, but there was a clear ring around them where no one would approach, where the grass was flattened from the sheer outpouring of mental prowess. At the edge of the circle lay Qrow, unnervingly still.

At the same time they arrived, Summer opened her mouth in a silent cry and hit the ground. Tai turned to her- just for a moment, but that moment was enough. An arrow from one of the elven bows slammed into his shoulder, knocking him down as well.

Glynda wasn’t even aware of trying to run until a hand took her wrist in a pincer-like grip and held her in place. She twisted angrily to glare at Pearl and the old woman leaned close, close enough for her alone to hear.

“You want to be a witch, girl?”

“What are you-“

“You called her here. You! Only you can make her leave. Tell me why you wish to be a witch.”

Glynda twisted away, trying to pull free, and shouted, “Because I’m tired of no one taking me seriously!”

She was stunned by the loosening of the hand on her wrist, by the satisfied look on Pearl’s face. She nodded at the three forms lying still in the grass.

“Look, Glynda- your champions lie defeated. Do you understand now what you’ve done?”

Glynda gave a gasping little sob and nodded, tears gathering as she did. “I never meant for this.”

“And yet only you can banish her.” Another hand on her shoulder, this one Dia’s.

“We’ll be at your side, young woman,” Dia said quietly. “But only  _ you _ can stop her. You want to be a witch? Are you willing to do what you must?”

She nodded, scrubbing away the tears that had fallen. Only now did she realize that time had seemed to still for their conversation, but now the Queen was approaching. She smiled.

“Hello, my dear, dear little one,” she said. “I was hoping for the chance to thank you properly for allowing me into this world.” She looked around. “And what a beautiful world it is! You have no idea how lucky you are- or were, since this world belongs to me now. But now I must thank you properly- you wanted power, didn’t you?”

“You hurt my friends,” Glynda said, stopping the Queen short. She looked over at the bodies and gave a careless shrug.

“Unfortunate, but necessary. They wanted to stand in my way. But oh, my dear, you don’t need them. You’ll have so many friends now- isn’t that what you were promised? You won’t need any other friends ever again.”

“I want  _ those _ friends.” She was aware that she sounded petulant, but she didn’t care.

The Queen was starting to lose her kind demeanor. She approached slowly. “I see the witches have dragged you into their way of thinking. But my dear, are you sure this is what you want?”

“You hurt my  _ friends _ ,” Glynda repeated, tone harder. She was unaware of the rubble floating in the ring around them, of the faint purple glow in her eyes and hands. “Go away.”

“But my dear.” The Queen smiled, a nasty smile. “ _ You _ invited me.”

“Then I’m  _ un _ inviting you! Go away!”

And then the Queen attacked, and the world went dark, and it was only the support of the witches at her back that kept Glynda on her feet. She couldn’t even feel them anymore, but there was a warmth behind her, gentle and furious and  _ stable _ at her back. Her back was to the wall but the witches  _ were _ a wall, and they wouldn’t let her fail.

She opened her eyes, and saw the Queen, standing out with almost her own internal light- she attacked again, all her mental prowess aimed at Glynda, but this time she saw it coming and was able to deflect it, though only barely. She was trembling from the exertion-

-and then the warmth at her back flooded her, filling her to the brim with heat and power until she felt it overflowing, and she did the only thing with that power that she could think of and pushed, pushed against the Queen until she saw her shift, and move-

-the hot centers of the power flooding into her faded; the power was still there, but she sensed, somehow, that she was standing alone. The thought worried her, but her attention was on the Queen now, pushing, pushing, she couldn’t question-

-It happened quite suddenly, so suddenly that Glynda staggered and hit the ground: the Queen’s power snapped, and she vanished with a snarl. Glynda opened her eyes as she fell, but all she saw before the blackness of unconsciousness overwhelmed her was the Queen as she fled, the Queen as she truly was, small and fragile and  _ nothing _ .

“And stay gone,” she tried to say, and passed out.

-/-

When Glynda came to again, the sky was just turning light, and there were several people leaning over her with concern. She was very embarrassed to realize that one of them was Lord Frost, and when she opened her eyes, he sighed with relief.

“Thank the gods,” he said, breathing a slow sigh of relief. “Easy, child,” he added, when she tried to sit up. He took her hand and helped her steady herself.

“What happened?” She asked. She looked around, and wished she hadn’t. She felt tears threatening and willed them away- she wouldn’t break down crying, not now, not in front of them.

“I was hoping you might tell us,” Frost said. “The elves vanished, all at once, and by the time we’d reached the stones-“

“Gentry,” Glynda said quietly. “Don’t speak their name. We don’t want to call them back.”

Frost looked startled, and nodded. “Yes- of course, I didn’t think.”

A few feet away, the other knights had been inspecting Summer and Tai’s- well, Summer and Tai. Iris had her ear close to Tai’s heart, and now she sat up on her heels.

“Frost, he’s still alive. He’s just unconscious- elfshot, you know.” She held her arm- encased in a shining gauntlet- over Tai’s mouth and showed them the faint, barely present fog on the metal.

“Summer’s still with us too,” Li said. He stood and picked her up, holding her quite gently. “We should take them back to- to Dia’s cottage.” He looked sick; Glynda didn’t blame him. “Her tools of healing are there. Though… I don’t know anyone who knows how to use them…”

“I know some things,” Raven said. “Not much but- but I can try.” She and Iris knelt and lifted Tai- he was much bigger than Summer and required both of them to carry him. Iris shot Frost a look.

“Send the girl along when she’s able to walk. Perhaps she can make herself of use. We’ll send someone else up to collect the- the others.”

“Of course,” he murmured, and was silent while he and Glynda watched them leave. Glynda did a quick mental headcount, and turned back to him.

“What about Qrow?” She asked. “And Leo?”

“Leo has fled,” Frost said wearily. “When it seemed the tide of battle had turned against us, he chose to forsake his oaths and retreat. He hasn’t been seen since; I can only imagine he chose to flee in shame. As for Qrow…” he trailed off. “We didn’t meet during the attack, and I can’t see him at all now.”

“He was here,” Glynda said quietly. “When we came up- the Queen had already gotten him.”

“Well he’s gone now.” He seemed tired, and Glynda wasn’t surprised when he leaned back in the grass, staring off into the distance with a slightly glassy look in his eye. She wondered what he was seeing, and as if to answer, he added, “Raven will refuse the role of sentinel when offered. My witches are dead, my sentinel is vanished, and one of my knights lies in limbo while another has fled. Soon a third will be released from her own vows to serve at my side- this village will soon be without a full set of guardians, and I- I, dear girl, must find some way to protect it.”

Glynda hung her head. “I’m sorry,” she said very quietly. “If I can make it right...“

Frost was silent. After a moment, it became clear that he had nothing else to say, so Glynda stood and began making her slow way back to the village.

-/-

If Glynda had felt lonely and unwelcome before, that was nothing to how she felt now. Much of the village took no notice of her, but the knights all seemed to look right through her, and others, picking up on their animosity, followed suit.

They buried the witches. Glynda stayed away, feeling that she didn’t belong. She couldn’t bring herself to go home, either. Instead she stayed at Dia’s cottage, watching over Tai and Summer. Raven had done all she could, but her knowledge of medicine was limited; her short stint as Dia’s apprentice was years gone, and had ended with her learning very little anyway.

Glynda didn’t feel welcome in the cottage, either, not when Raven was there, but she felt better when she was there. And at least she could be useful. And Dia owned- had owned- many books about elves, and Glynda spent her time reading them, trying to learn what she could, anything that would tell her about what was wrong with her friends.

Three nights after the attack, Glynda dreamed of the a stag running through steam, and when she woke, she suddenly understood what she had to do. She slipped out of the little cot and padded barefoot through the cottage to the sickroom, where Raven was sitting over the others.

“What do you want?” Raven asked, when Glynda appeared before her. Glynda took a deep breath.

“I need one of the… special horseshoes,” she said. “I think I know how to fix this. Or at least… fix part of it.”

Raven opened one eye and glared at her. “What do you know of the special horseshoes?”

“I don’t,” Glynda admitted. “But I know I need one. I was told you would know.”

Raven watched her for a long time, and then stood. “You’re going into  _ their _ world, aren’t you?” At Glynda’s nod, she snorted. “All right. Wait here.”

She left. Glynda stared after her, a little surprised. She’d expected Raven to refuse, to say that she was being foolish, to try to stop her- but then, why should she? She had never liked Glynda very much, even before… everything. She had nothing to lose by Glynda entering the elven realms.

Glynda waited patiently until Raven returned, and handed her a horseshoe. It looked quite like an ordinary horseshoe, and Glynda frowned down at it.

“What makes it special?” She asked. Raven snorted.

“Trade secret,” she said. “If you’re going, better go. Circle Time is over tomorrow.”

-/-

It was a long walk up to the Long Man. Glynda kept her hand tucked into her pocket the whole way, fingers clasped around the special horseshoe, and tried to decide if it felt different than an ordinary horseshoe or if it was just her imagination.

Either way, she reached the Long Man entirely too soon. Once she was there, she walked around it thoughtfully, wondering exactly how she was supposed to enter it-

“Ah, you came.”

Glynda stood up rigid, staring in shock at the stag standing in front of her. It was just an ordinary stag, or at least it seemed to be one, but it was staring at her with eyes as deep as eternity, and it flickered slightly while she stood watching it, as if it wasn’t  _ really _ there.

“The entry is this way,” said the voice, which came from the deer, though it hadn’t actually spoken. It was more that the words had been slotted in her head, without bothering about her ears.

While she considered that, the deer turned and began walking toward the far end of the Long Man, just below the- the two rounder hills at the base. She followed hesitantly, and when she got nearer she saw a set of standing stones set into the space between the two hills, stacked to make a door. The stag stepped into the door and vanished, and after a startled moment, Glynda followed, still clutching the horseshoe in her pocket.

-/-

Glynda followed the stag for a long time through the tunnel, which was hot and humid and winding, a spiral that never seemed to get tighter or deeper. She could feel, though, that she was making progress, even when the stag vanished, so she kept walking. She had to end up in the right place eventually.

When she felt she had been walking forever, and was about to call out, she suddenly found herself in front of a door. She wondered if it had come at the sound of her thoughts, or if she’d merely finally walked enough. She ignored those questions, and stepped through.

It was the same place she’d been before, the steamroom with the distant shadows that watched her as she walked through. She knew where she was going this time, and wasted no time in approaching the King’s throne.

He was just as he’d been before, lounging while he watched her. She stood up straight, rigid, and closed her hands around the horseshoe.

“I’ve come,” she said.

“I can see that.” He looked amused. “You have decided to take the power I’ve offered you?”

“No. I’ve come to ask you to teach me how to heal.”

This got her a raised eyebrow, and he gave her a curious look.

“If you had power,” he began, but she cut him off.

“I don’t want power anymore,” she said. “I want to help my friends.”

“Healing takes time to learn.”

“You’ve got plenty of it. Haven’t you? I looked it up. You and the Queen- you both control an aspect of your world. Isn’t that right? She commands space and you command time. You can teach me all you know and it would still be the same time I left when I returned. Right?”

The King was silent for a long while, steepling his fingers in front of him and staring at her thoughtfully over them. Finally he smiled.

“You’re a very clever young lady,” he said. “Too bad you didn’t put that cleverness to work before.”

“I’m aware of how badly I messed up,” she said. “I’m trying to fix it- at least what parts of it I can. Teach me to heal- to fix the damage I’ve done to Tai and Summer.”

He was silent again, and then he smiled. “The knowledge you seek will come at a price- are you prepared to pay it?”

“To save my friends? Absolutely.”

“Very well.” He stood. “Come with me. Let’s see if we may teach you something.”

-/-

When Glynda returned, as predicted the day had not changed since the moment she’d stepped into the Long Man. But all the same she felt different- older, more stable- she had been in the Long Man for an eternity, or perhaps only a few hours, and her whole world had changed.

_ “I can teach you quite easily how to heal elfshot,” _ the King had told her.  _ “But for the other- she has been laid low by my Queen’s attack, and her time is limited.” _

_ “There’s nothing I can do for her?” _

_ “Oh, I wouldn’t say that- as you said, time is something of a specialty of mine. But you can only buy her so much. I’ll show you what you need to do. Don’t worry. You have a great deal of potential- you should be able to buy her a LOT of time.” _

Glynda found the cottage just as she’d left it, with Summer and Tai lying far-too-still in the sickroom and Raven between them, slouched in an uncomfortable chair, sleeping, for a given definition of the word.

She didn’t bother waking the woman when she arrived; instead she went into the pantry and found the things she’d need to save Tai. For the elfshot, a poultice would do, and a potion to erase the influence, but Summer would take magical healing. That would have to wait.

By the time she’d finished the poultice, Raven had woken. She watched silently while Glynda tended the wound, and when she’d finally stopped, Raven leaned back, arms folded.

“What did you trade him, for the power to heal?”

“Not power.” Glynda refused to look up at her. “Just teaching. From now on I use no power but my own.”

“Nothing they give comes without a price,” Raven said. “What did you trade him, for the  _ knowledge _ to heal?”

When Glynda still refused to look at her, Raven frowned and caught her head, forcibly turning it up to face her. She looked into Glynda’s eyes, her own left eye glinting as she used her sight, and then the anger melted away as she found what she was looking for- or rather, found the absence.

“You gave him your futures,” she said quietly. “All of them. Why?”

Glynda remained silent, and when Raven’s grip on her loosened she looked away, her gaze landing on Tai, whose color was already returning.

“I’m sorry,” she said suddenly. “About- about everything. I’m going to make it right, as right as I can, however I can.” She looked up at Raven. “I can’t undo everything I’ve done. But I can at least give these two their lives back. That’s worth- it’s worth all the possibilities I might have had.” She gave a little half-shrug. “Besides, I wanted to be a witch. What was I really giving up, in the long run?”

Raven sighed. “So much more than you realize,” she said.

-/-

It took Glynda threes tries to wake Summer. It wasn’t that she couldn’t, Summer was just buried deep inside her own head and it took a long time for Glynda to find her, to bring her back.

When Summer finally did open her eyes, Glynda wobbled, swaying slightly on the spot until Raven caught her shoulders, steadying her until the wooziness had passed.

Once she was stable again, she asked Raven to leave so she could talk to Summer alone. She needed to explain- to apologize- and Summer needed to know the truth about how she’d been healed.

Summer listened while Glynda told her everything, pouring out the entire story, and waiting patiently when she broke down crying the middle. Eventually, she’d filled her in on everything, including her conversation with the King, and finally she explained, halting, hesitant, that Summer was running on borrowed time, that Glynda hadn’t been able to  _ save _ her so much as  _ stall _ .

Summer didn’t say anything to that, and after awhile, the silence became unbearable, so Glynda got up and left. Summer probably needed to be alone anyway.

-/-

Tai found Glynda in the now-vacant northern witch’s cottage. He knocked softly, and when there was no answer he came in anyway. His arm was in a sling- he’d been cured of the elfshot, but he’d still taken an arrow to the shoulder, and the wound itself would take time to heal.

He still opened his good arm to catch her when she hurled herself at him though, wrapping her up in a one-armed hug and holding her close when she buried her face in his shirt and hugged him as tight as she could.

“You’re not supposed to be up yet,” she mumbled into his middle. She made no move to let go of him, though. He laughed.

“That’s what Raven said, but when she told me what happened I wasn’t going to just lie in bed and not come check on you. Are you okay?”

She sniffled, and pulled away, scrubbing her damp face with one hand. “I’m fine,” she said. “I’m not the one that nearly died.”

“Okay one, we both know that’s not true, and two, why does that matter? You still went through something horrifying. You’re allowed to not be fine.”

“It’s not important.”

“It’s important to me.” He brought his good hand up and brushed away a stray tear. “I want you to be fine. If you’re not, you need to tell me, so I can help you get back to it.”

“I’m… not fine,” she said slowly. “But I will be. Now that you and Summer are okay.”

“That’s what I want to hear.” He chucked her chin gently. “So tell me about this trade you made. Raven said you gave the King your futures, but I’m not really sure what that means.”

“Oh- that- it’s-” She hesitated, trying to decide how to explain. “It’s, everyone has a lot of potential futures in them. All the things they could be and do and become. I traded all of mine to the King so he would teach me to heal. Now I’ve only got one future, to be the witch of this village.”

He looked hesitant when he said, “That doesn’t sound so bad. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

She shrugged. “Sort of. But… he showed me the futures I was giving up. Said a bargain wasn’t fair if I didn’t know the value of what I offered. And there were… some very good ones. All lost to me now.”

“...I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, it was worth it.” She scrubbed away a few fresh tears. “Besides, it’s not all bad. He showed me some of the new one, and it’s… it’s got its highlights.” A sniffle. “...you’re in it.”

“Well that’s good. That means I’ll still be here to look after you.” He beamed, and then his smile faded. “Glynda… I’m never going to forget this. What you gave up to save us.”

“Shut up.” She turned away. “It was my own fault. I was just trying to fix what I broke.”

His smile in response looked sad, broken. “I’m still never going to forget it.”

-/-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note for those who don't follow the blog, I'm adding two more fics to my writing cycle so it'll be a bit longer till I get the next update of this up.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to see discussion of this or any of my other fics, drop by and visit me on Tumblr @grifalinas!


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